Rejoicing
by Checkerboards
Summary: -Sorrow 6- "If thou sorrow, he will weep; if you wake, he cannot sleep; thus of every grief in heart he with thee doth bear a part." - Richard Barnfield
1. Deck the Halls

_Author's Note: I know, I know, this is still not about Eddie and Jackie. The good news is that they will be making an appearance in this story. The better news is that just about every other rogue in Gotham will show up too! But the best news is that Beach House is the very next thing I'm going to write. I promise with all the pinky swears, cross my hearts, and toxx clauses I can muster._

_On with the show!_

_

* * *

_

Of all of the holidays not celebrated in Arkham Asylum, Christmas was at the very top of the list. For starters, Christmas was usually seen as a time of love, peace, and goodwill toward men, none of which particularly interested Arkham's denizens.

Besides, celebrating Christmas implied decking the halls with boughs of holly and hanging decorations on the tree, activities that would undoubtedly end in festive red splashes across the floors as the inmates armed themselves with merry mayhem. They might have gotten away with some limp paper cutouts on the walls, but really, what would be the point?

No, on the whole, it was much safer to pretend that Christmas didn't exist - that is, for the inmates. The staff compensated by decorating the break rooms top to bottom with cheap paper ornaments. For them, Christmas was a time to be celebrated, if only because they would soon receive a lovely fat paycheck and a gift card to a randomly selected restaurant.

* * *

It has been said many times that only the brave and the stupid take positions at Arkham.

This is, naturally, only partially true. Arkham offered a wide variety of wonderful positions for people neither brave nor stupid, but desperate for cash. For the culinarily inclined, there were a selection of jobs open in Arkham's massive kitchens, which fed inmates and staff alike. (As an unspoken bonus, the workers had access to lots of sharp things in case of riots or marauding escapees.) For those that didn't mind scrubbing up blood, feces, blood, stray bowlfuls of food, or blood, there were always shining futures open in the janitorial field.

And if, like certain residents of Gotham, you wanted some personal hands-on time with a rogue or two, well, what better job than that of orderly? The crew of green-suited orderlies that roamed Arkham's hallways had it easy. They had nearly infallible job security, twice the pay of their compatriots at less infamous locations, and all they had to do in return was manhandle some of the world's most deadly personages through their daily routines.

Orders, of course, were vital to the life of an orderly. It was not the orderlies' place to determine privileges or dispense new medications. No, the orderly relied entirely on the little pieces of paper posted every day in the staff room to tell him what to do and when to do it. Without those little bits of paper, the system broke down quicker than a hungry dog stealing the Thanksgiving turkey.

Sorrow and Grief were a troublesome pair of new arrivals. All of the doctors had brilliant ideas to restrain and contain Sorrow, from locking gloves to locking her in the basement, but no one wanted to be the one to inflict them on her. She had brutally murdered the last doctor to lay his hands on her. (Well, technically she'd just made him disembowel himself, but was that really any better?) At any rate, he'd also been subjected to an exhaustive round of psychological torture, and that was a prospect that no doctor felt like facing.

It was a curious oddity that they all felt more comfortable around the likes of the Scarecrow than they did around Sorrow. Then again, none of the other rogues showed much interest in the doctors of Arkham when they were outside its walls. They were content to live and let live until they were captured again, when matters reverted back to a state of live and let die. Besides, where was the fun in treating Sorrow? At least the Scarecrow had a reputation in Gotham, even if it was a reputation for destroying people from the mind outward. Sorrow was dangerous and a relative unknown. There was simply not enough potential for fame and glory while treating her when balanced against the risk that she wouldn't let them live to regret it.

As for Grief, he had been almost universally dismissed as unimportant while he worked as Arkham's archivist. The thought of what he might do now that he was in love and allied with Sorrow was upsetting, to say the least. Not only was he allied with a known doctor-killer, but he certainly had enough motive to spur her onward in her quest to rid the world of malicious incompetence. (The fact that she wasn't planning a wholesale slaughter of medical professionals never seemed to register with Arkham's staff. Like many survivors of higher education, they knew what they knew, even if it was completely wrong.)

And so, rather than anyone volunteering to take their cases, the two of them were handed off from doctor to doctor as quickly as the doctors could manage it. Favors were called in, bribes were offered, and minor amounts of blackmail were suggested, sending the responsibility skipping from person to person like a highly infectious case of the flu. At some point, someone was bound to run out of options and be forced to take them.

Since no one was in charge of them, no one had bothered to fill out those ever-so-vital instruction sheets for them. Without instructions, none of the orderlies quite knew what to do about them - but they were upstairs, weren't they? If they were destined for special treatment, surely someone would have mentioned it. Surely they weren't that dangerous, if they hadn't been labeled high-security. Surely they were subject to the same lifestyle as everyone else in the asylum...

Chaos travels under many names. One of its favorite aliases is Surely.

* * *

Troy Grey, also known as Grief, huddled on his bed, knees drawn up protectively in front of him. He did his best not to visibly tremble, although he could do nothing about the beads of sweat trickling down his spine. He gnawed on his lip, trying to calm down. It didn't help.

Upon being admitted to a facility such as Arkham Asylum, most people are scared. They don't know anyone around them. And while the staff may have laid out the official rules for them, there are always unwritten rules that might be broken unwittingly - and in an asylum, everyone was likely to interpret those rules to their own satisfaction. The fear of the newcomer is the fear of the unknown. (Except, of course, for those who feared the likes of the CIA, the aliens, or even the Anunnaki. Their fear was slightly more frustrating, since no one else really understood the terror of being secretly ruled by intergalactic shape-shifting vampiric lizard people in red dresses.)

Troy Grey, however, knew exactly what could lay in wait for him, and he was flat-out terrified. He was being housed in the rogues' wing, which meant that he was sharing a hallway with some of the world's most notorious criminals whose screws were so loose that they'd probably never been screwed in in the first place. The only place he could feel marginally safe in was his cell, and even that was temporary. Once the high-security cells in the basement freed up again, he might find himself locked away in the dark for the rest of his life near Sorrow.

No! They had to get out, together, as soon as possible. It was the only way. With his bottom lip firmly tucked between his teeth, he brooded over possible escape plans.

Something rattled outside. Instinctively, he slammed backward against the wall and peered furtively out from behind the fortress of his kneecaps. A bored-looking orderly lounged in the open doorway, idly tapping the fingers of one hand against the wall. "Let's go. Rec."

Rec...they were sending him to the _rec room_? But they _never_ sent new patients to the rec room! "Come on," the orderly urged, impatience flashing in his eyes. "I ain't got all day."

Troy obediently crept out of the room. The cells around him were mostly empty, barring a few with inmates lurking sullenly inside. Each door held a bright red sign posted at eye level. The signs each bore a different neatly-typed list of the inmate's name, powers and favorite ways to inconvenience the staff. Some doors had multiple signs in order to inform the orderlies that the offender was being punished by lack of recreation time or lack of cafeteria access. His own door was bare.

He hurried uncomfortably ahead of the orderly, wincing as the man's fingers pressed on his shoulders when he took a step out of line. Finally, with no fanfare whatsoever, the orderly unlocked the rec room and shoved him inside.

His eyes darted from side to side, desperately seeking a place to hide. The Scarecrow lurked by the window, pretending to be so fascinated by the flurrying snow outside that he couldn't hear the Mad Hatter pleading for a game of chess. Poison Ivy, back to her normal green, scowled furiously at the television, where a rosy-cheeked reporter reminded her viewers that there were only a few more days left to get a fresh-cut Christmas tree. The Riddler occupied the other end of the couch, deeply involved in filling out a crossword puzzle with a small blunt stick of charcoal. Two girls who he vaguely recognized as Two-Face's henchgirls sat gossiping and putting a puzzle together at a tiny table. Sorrow was nowhere in sight.

He gulped nervously and edged toward an empty table in a relatively abandoned area of the room. The sharp scent of industrial-strength disinfectant filled his nose. He desperately stifled a sneeze as he padded over the freshly-mopped floor. Another sneeze hammered at his sinuses, threatening to explode his head if it wasn't released. He clamped both hands over his face and did his best to stifle it.

"_AtissssssssssshhOOO!_"

Slowly, with dread dampening the nape of his neck, he unpeeled his fingers from his face and looked out at the room. Everyone was looking directly back at him as if he was a cricket who had just stumbled into a gathering of half-starved tarantulas. Casually, they began to put aside their various activities and drift toward him - all but the Riddler, who wouldn't notice anything except his crossword unless you lit it on fire.

The door slammed open once more. Sorrow staggered in, helped along by a hearty shove from the orderly. She shot the back of his head a dirty look as the door clanged shut.

"Sorrow!" Troy said, nearly wiping out on the damp linoleum as he scrambled to her side. Without thinking, he threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly.

She disengaged him. "Not now," she said, distractedly tugging her jumpsuit back into place. The other rogues, recognizing him as just a henchman, turned dismissively away as Sorrow led him to a nearby table.

"Are you okay?" he said as soon as they were seated.

"Fine. We've got to get out of here."

"I was just thinking that!" He beamed happily at her. "So what's the plan?"

"Plan?"

"The plan. You know." He lowered his voice and leaned forward in what was probably an attempt to keep the plan a secret. Since being quiet and getting close was the internationally recognized sign to eavesdrop, everyone in the room paid a little closer attention to them. "The plan to escape."

"There isn't one."

"But we have to get out of here!"

"I'm aware of that," she snapped, irritably flicking a little splinter of wood off of the ancient table. "How do you suggest that we actually _do _it?"

"We could...um...well, how do you usually get out?" He brightened up as an idea glittered in his head. "You could pick the locks and let us out!"

"I don't pick locks," Sorrow said flatly. "I hire people to do that for me."

"Oh. Um..." he drummed his fingers on the table, eager to help. "Harley escaped one time by going down the laundry chute!"

"And she ended up half-drowned and she smelled like fabric softener for two weeks. Besides, now they guard the laundry room, too."

"Oh. I guess we can't do that, then."

They sat for a while in urgent silence. There had to be a way out of here! With longing, he thought of his keys - his wonderful, dear little cardkeys that were probably still in his car. Oh sweet, useful little keys! Maybe he could steal some from one of the doctors. Okay, so he'd never actually stolen anything, but it couldn't be that hard, could it?

The ancient springs in the sofa creaked as Eddie stood up, finished crossword book in hand. With a reluctant sigh, he pitched it onto an empty table and handed the charcoal back to an orderly seated behind a nurses' station protected with bulletproof glass. The orderly, more interested in his magazine than the Riddler, grunted something unintelligible and put it back into a drawer. The Riddler scanned the room for more puzzle books. There were none, not even a measly find-the-word puzzle. Then, seeing Sorrow, he wandered over for some cheap entertainment.

"Is this seat taken?' he smiled, settling into a chair with an affable smile on his face.

Sorrow nodded welcomingly. "Hey, Eddie."

"How'd you get out of the basement? Did you sweet-talk that doctor of yours?" he winked.

"Not...exactly,' Sorrow said uncomfortably.

"What was it? Blackmail? Bribes?"

"For your information, she got out on her own,' Troy snapped, doubly stung at the inference that she'd need his help and that he would have let her out without permission.

Eddie, who hadn't really bothered noticing him, jolted backward slightly with the force of recognition. "And what, might I ask, are you doing here?' he asked coldly.

"Well...I..." Troy stammered, looking at the table.

Before matters could escalate, Sorrow stepped in. "He was hiding me from Batman." She shrugged. "We got caught. Not much to it, really."

Eddie sat back, pondering this turn of events. "So you and him...are you _and _him," he said pensively.

"Yes," Sorrow said patiently. Inside, Troy's stomach did a little flip of delight. "Was there anything else?"

"Actually...yes." Eddie looked embarrassed. "You're not the only one with a new sidekick."

"Reeeeeeeeally?" Sorrow drawled.

"Really. But she got away from Nightwing - well, I helped - and now she's alone out there! I've got to get back out there and get her somewhere safe." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "Are you in?"

"To get out? Of course we're in," Sorrow agreed instantly. Troy bit his lip. He wasn't quite sure that he was willing to trust his freedom to the Riddler - but then, what choice did he have?

"Good. I can get us out of our cells and I know the way out of the building. The problem is the guards. You can take care of them, right?"

Sorrow displayed her hands. The vote to lock her gloves back on had clearly gotten a veto. Unfortunately, the vote to wrap her hands in two layers of rubber gloves separated by steel mesh gloves and glued solidly at the wrists had been carried almost unanimously. "Unless you've got a hacksaw hidden in your cell, we're out of luck."

Eddie ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "But we've got to get them out of our way somehow!"

"Well, how do you normally do it?"

"Usually we're in a group and...someone...gets thrown away as cannon fodder." There was a distinct implication that Eddie had drawn that particular short straw more than once. "But the guards won't-"

"The guards!" Troy exclaimed jubilantly. "Of course!"

"Of course what?" Sorrow asked.

Troy darted a quick look at the nearest orderly. He was keeping an eye trained on the Scarecrow and the Hatter, anticipating trouble. "The staff Christmas party is on the twenty-second," he whispered. "The guards always slip away to go have a drink. If we waited until the ones up here disappeared, we'd be home free!"

"Not quite. There would still be guards on the lower levels," Eddie said, dismissing his idea. "No, we'll just have to find someone else."

They surveyed the lot. The rogues that were present did not inspire much confidence as to their ability to take on the guards without the help of any useful little thematic devices. The only one that currently had powers was Poison Ivy, and she was typically not too willing to cooperate with anyone, especially not the two people that had gotten her tossed back into Arkham. Everyone else would be excellent as bait - that is, unless they pulled a double-cross and sold them out...

"I know!" Sorrow said, a smile of evil delight creeping onto her face. "It's perfect!"

"Who?" Eddie demanded.

"Oh, it's not a _who_, exactly," Sorrow said impishly. She lowered her voice and leaned in, discussing her plan in hushed tones with the other two potential escapees.

Eddie nodded. "Right." He stood up, shoving his chair back to its original table. "See you in three days!"

(_to be continued_)


	2. Dashing Through the Snow

Midnight was cold at Arkham Asylum, and it was cold on purpose. There were many ways to keep inmates in their beds - drugs, threats, or even straps - but nothing worked quite so cheaply and effectively as merely making the inmates want to cuddle up under their nice thin standard-issue blankets.

A lone guard padded down the rogues' hallway, glancing into each cell as he passed. Every one of them was tucked snugly into bed, breathing quietly as they presumably dreamed happy dreams of total destruction. The guard's footsteps sped up as he reached the door, thudding audibly through the halls as he hustled downstairs to steal a little time at the Christmas party.

The Riddler flung himself out of bed as if he'd discovered a family of hedgehogs nesting in the mattress and rushed to the wall. Falling to his knees, he pawed blindly in the dark until he found the oh-so-convenient crack in the mortar. With his tongue held thoughtfully between his front teeth, he eased a bedspring lockpick from its hiding spot. He raided his other hiding spots just as quickly, ending up with a fistful of metal picks that jingled slightly as he moved. It was the work of a moment to twiddle the door lock into the open position.

_Thunk_. The door swung freely open. He stepped outside, stopping himself at the last second from whistling a cheery tune, and sauntered to Sorrow's cell. In no time at all, he'd sprung both her and her henchman from their confinement. The dim lights of the hallway reflected dully from the lock picks as the trio crept down the hallway.

Sorrow's original plan had been simple. Instead of taking their chances with only one or two others, why not break everyone out? Surely a group of ten or so was far more likely to make it than a group of four. However, that still left the issue of sabotage. A hallway full of powered and high-security rogues meant a hallway full of people that would be willing to sacrifice them to the guards without a moment's thought. Just as they had been about to dismiss the idea entirely, the Riddler had come up with his most wonderful escape plan yet.

If a group of ten could get out, why not a group of twenty? Or thirty? After all, there were other rogues in Arkham besides the A-listers. True, some of them couldn't be trusted to stay with the pack, which is why they'd be firmly ignored, but a good portion of B and C-listers could be trusted to keep up and not do anything too stupid.

So down the halls they went, freeing rogue after rogue, explaining the situation in whispered hisses as the escape party grew larger and larger. One by one, as fast as they could, they freed one another, ignoring past feuds in the spirit of temporary companionship.

Of course, not everyone could be let out. The Joker and Harley Quinn, for example, were securely tucked away in the basement. Clayface, Mr. Freeze, and Killer Croc were housed in specially designed cells on the other side of Arkham. And, of course, some of them were just not welcome at the party.

"Maybe next time, Lyle," grinned the Riddler, waving coquettishly at Lock-Up as he scowled murderously from behind the reinforced plexiglass window of his cell.

"Or not," Poison Ivy drawled, blowing him a kiss.

"You won't get away with this," Lock-Up snarled, slamming his fists against the window. "GUARD! GUARD!" he bellowed, punctuating his shouts with blows from his meaty fists.

"He's off-duty," Doctor Destiny intoned with a raised eyebrow.

The horde of rogues trotted past, gathering together as the final ones were released. "Later, Lock-Up," grinned Killer Moth. "Gotta fly!"

They crept to the main stairway, treading as quietly as they could down the ancient steps. Whispering to one another like the world's most badly behaved schoolchildren out for a field trip, they crept toward their homes, their plans, and sweet, sweet freedom.

* * *

Batman allowed himself to lean back in his chair as the computer saved that night's notes. It had been a quiet night, if any night could be said to be quiet in Gotham. Half a dozen petty criminals were nursing various bumps and bruises in the various holding cells tucked inside a few chosen police stations. Half a dozen more would join them whenever the police got around to cutting them down from the streetlights.

And true, twelve criminals off the streets meant twelve criminals that wouldn't be bothering anyone tomorrow - but thanks to the overcrowded prisons, they probably would be back to their old tricks by next week at the latest. At times, his task seemed to be as meaningful as Sisyphus', with about the same success rate.

A small red light blinked urgently in the gloom of the cave. His eyes narrowed. That light meant that someone had set off the red alert at Arkham.

He stabbed an equally flashing red button with a forefinger, activating the tap into Arkham's radio system. With the ease of years of practice, he let dozens of radio signals stream past him, picking out the pertinent information. Near the trophy displays, Alfred cocked an ear and listened quietly. "...escape..." "...don't know how, but..." "...only ones left are Lock-Up and the level 10s..." "...even _Captain Stingaree_ is gone, for god's sake..."

Batman was not an emotional being. Rather, his emotional spectrum included many subtle variations on a theme - aggravation, anger, fury, annoyance, ire, exasperation, and good old reliable rage - but never anything so useless as piddly little things like happiness or confusion. So he pointedly did not flop back in his chair and wail in frustration, nor did he drop his head into his hands and bawl like a two-year-old denied a second bedtime story.

Instead, his gloved fist slammed down into the metal desktop, adding another dent to the thousands peppering the once-shiny surface.

Someone had let Arkham's rogues loose. Oh, Lock-Up was still inside, and Mr. Freeze, Killer Croc, Clayface, and anyone else requiring personalized security measures had been abandoned...but that meant that there were still approximately fifty other villains of all shapes, sizes, and levels of insanity in _his city _wreaking havoc.

With a grim look in his eyes, Batman rose to his feet and stalked back to his car, ignoring Alfred's watchful gaze. The Batmobile roared into the darkness, leaving nothing behind but a faint stench of exhaust and the chittering of startled bats.

Alfred resumed polishing the trophy cases. Whoever was responsible for the breakout was due for one legendary beating. He almost felt sorry for whoever it was.

_Author's Note: This story is going on hiatus so that I can post Beach House. _


	3. I'll be Home for Christmas

They say that birds of a feather flock together. This is true for most species. When it comes to the rare breed of Newly-Freed Rogue (scientific classification: _arkhamus escapicus_), however, flocking together lasts only as long as it has to before everyone flies off to their own heavily guarded nests.

One of the advantages of being a relatively unknown rogue was this: when the city was full of big names like Poison Ivy and the Riddler running around, very few cops felt the need to check up on little uninfamous you. With the aid of their wonderfully distracting escapemates, Sorrow and Grief managed to make it to Sorrow's warehouse hideout mostly undisturbed by the forces of justice.

Troy staggered into the warehouse after Sorrow, wheezing, resting his hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath. Sorrow, only slightly out of breath, hummed happily to herself as she slid her gloved hands along the doorframe. "Where are you, where are you..._there_ you are!" she said happily as a little panel popped open. She slipped the key out, unlocked the door, and gestured inside. "Go on in," she invited, waving him forward.

He stumbled inside, sitting down in the first chair he saw and leaning on the table as he slowly got his breath back. Gotham City was seventeen miles from end to end, a fact that he hadn't really appreciated until he had to run through most of it in the dead of winter with no coat and badly fitting shoes. Playing hide-and-seek with the occasional cop hadn't helped matters much.

When his heart had quit trying to hammer its way out of his chest, he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his jumpsuit sleeve and took his first look around Sorrow's lair.

It looked...normal. Terribly, mystifyingly normal, down to the slightly grubby furniture and the stack of newspapers on the little table by the door. He'd expected...well, frankly, he'd expected something more like the Joker's lair, although with a better color scheme. The newspaper pictures he'd seen of other rogue lairs had been nothing like this. They'd been themed, and heavily decorated, and invariably nearly totally destroyed, but before the bats had visited they'd probably looked amazing. This place had no theme whatsoever, except for a tendency toward blue-upholstered furniture. The dust on the surfaces and the faint smell of musty attic told him that no one had been inside in a long, long time. Sorrow herself sat on a wooden chair much like his own, going through a small pile of long-neglected mail on the other end of the kitchen table.

"You get mail?" he blurted thoughtlessly.

"Yep. Credit card offers, contests, coupons...it's almost like I'm a real person," she said, frisbeeing a fat beige envelope into the trash can.

"You are a real person!" he snapped, irritated.

"Sure I am," she agreed absently. She toyed with an envelope, folding a corner back and forth a few times before setting it down. "So what happens now?"

"Huh?"

She picked up another envelope and played with a loose flap of stamp sticking up, keeping her eyes focused on it instead of him. "What will you do? Leaving town would probably be your best bet, since they'll be looking for you. Do you have anyone to hide with? Maybe you'd be safer out of the country. Do you have enough money to make it to Mexico?"

He shook his head, completely flummoxed. "Why would I go there?"

"Because Batman thinks you're my henchman?" she suggested.

"But I am!" He blushed as she dropped the envelope and looked up at him with shock in her eyes. "I mean, if you'll let me."

She raked her hair back out of her face and pinned him with a determined stare. "No."

"What?" He shook his head again, trying to clear the poisons of exhaustion out of his brain. They resolutely stayed put. "What do you mean, no?"

"I mean no!" She picked up her envelope and began fiddling with the corner of it again. "Look, Troy - "

"Grief," he corrected firmly.

"Troy," she repeated, "you don't want to do this."

"Yes, I do," he said stubbornly.

"You really don't! You told me so yourself!" She threw the envelope down. "You're a nice guy, Troy. Get out of town before it's too late."

Troy looked down at his muddied, sweat-dampened Arkham Asylum jumpsuit which did a fabulous job of covering his Bat-bruises and a chemical burn or two from trying to heal Poison Ivy. He'd gone right beyond 'too late' several days ago. "I'm staying."

"You're not!" She raked her hair back again and thumped back in her seat, resting her shoulderblades on the top edge of the chair. "If you were staying - and you're not -"

"I am," he said mulishly.

"You...okay," she said, cutting off her anger midsentence. "All right. Fine." She folded her arms and glared at him like a drill sergeant. "Convince me."

"Of what?"

"Convince me that you should stay."

Troy gulped. "Well, I...that is...I can..." What could he offer her? Rogues hardly needed psychiatrists - rather, they did, and in fact that was one of the central tenets of being a rogue, but none of them _wanted_ psychiatrists around, so his extensive training in the study of the human brain meant absolutely zip. He couldn't run, he didn't know how to use weapons, he couldn't save himself from the Batman -

Inspiration struck him like a mallet to the head. "You want me to be safe?" She nodded curtly. "Then I have to stay with you," he said, grinning widely.

She stared at him, unimpressed. "That's it? You're basing your argument on the thought that you'll be _safer_ with me? You do realize that since you've met me, you've lost your job and your home, you've been admitted to and escaped from Arkham, and Ivy almost killed you. What part of that says _safe_ to you?"

He spread his hands. "Okay. Say I leave. Say I make it out of Gotham. What then? Whether it's true or not, everyone from the Batman all the way down to the rogues thinks that I'm your sidekick. And whenever you do something they don't like, they'll come looking for me. Without you around, it's only a matter of time before I'm back in Arkham or...worse," he added, thinking about the various fates available to people who found themselves on the wrong side of the rogues gallery. "And anyway, I'm not going to leave because -" He slammed his mouth shut, cursing his big mouth for bringing it up.

Sorrow waited silently, watching him with a neutral expression on her face. "Because?" she prodded, when he didn't continue.

"It's that...I..." He squirmed, yanking at the constricting collar of his jumpsuit. "I just...I love you, okay?!" He bit his lip and looked down, fighting for some courage. "I love you and I don't want to leave. And it doesn't matter if Batman puts us in Stonegate or Arkham or in the trunk of his car as long as I'm with you. You were right, I never meant to be your sidekick when I put on the costume, but after this week...I survived Harley, I survived Ivy, and I survived Batman, but I don't think I could survive without...you."

A long silence stretched over the table. He didn't dare look up, watching his hands as they twisted helplessly around one another. He'd blown it. He hadn't meant to tell her that he loved her. What kind of schmuck told someone they loved them when they hadn't even been on a date? When the closest thing they'd had to interaction had been a fifty-minute therapy session? And yes, they'd had fun that night at the Joker's house, but that didn't mean that she felt anything for him.

Maybe he should go. But he'd just spent all that time arguing reasons that he should stay! He'd look like a fool if he got up and left after all of that. Then again, maybe he _already_ looked like a fool for telling her that he loved her. And where would he go, anyway? Maybe he could -

A hand gently squeezed his shoulder. "You're an idiot," Sorrow said, "and you're stubborn, and you're a terrible runner." His soul crumbled into little gray pieces of despair. He turned his face away, not wanting her to see his reaction. A gloved hand captured his chin and turned his head back. She studied his face with a small smile. "But I love you anyway."

"You do? You _do_?" he yelped, jumping up from his chair.

"I do," she nodded.

"So I can stay?" Hope lit up his face like a Fourth of July fireworks finale.

"You can stay. Welcome aboard," she added, holding out a businesslike hand for an official handshake.

Grief bypassed her hand entirely and seized her around the midsection, swinging her in circles like an extremely overcaffeinated ballroom dancer. Joy fueled his steps, propelling them around and around the tiny apartment until they collapsed on the soft, ancient couch.

"So what do we do now?" he asked, still fizzing with glee.

"Well...we'll have to get you a new costume. You'll need some kind of weapon, and time to learn to use it - I'm not letting you out there unprotected," she continued over his protests. "We need to find a new lair, because after the cops are done rounding up the big names they'll be coming here for us. We need to make some plans, get some help, and get some more money out of this town. But first," she said, pushing herself back up off of the couch, "I'm going to finish going through the mail."

"But what do I do?"

"You can find us some food. Check the freezer." She settled herself down in her chair and continued flipping through the junk mail.

He got up, wincing as his muscles protested having to move any more after their unaccustomed run and mini dance marathon, and limped to the freezer. As he placed his hand on the handle, Sorrow let out a low, impressed whistle.

Grief turned to see her studying a black envelope. A Batsignal was printed in vivid yellow ink on the front of it, something that nearly gave Grief a heart attack before he realized that the signal had firmly been crossed out with a large red X. In fancy script around the signal, more red ink spelled out "The Rogues' Gallery X-mas Party".

* * *

Sorrow carefully slipped a gloved finger under the flap of the envelope, doing her best to pry it open without damaging it too much. "Well, well, well," she murmured as the last bit of paper parted. A small white card slid out into her hand. Behind her, Grief leaned closer so that he could see.

"To Ms. Sorrow," the card read, "The Penguin cordially invites you to the annual X-mas party, to be held on Christmas Day at 8:00 PM in the Iceberg's VIP lounge."

"Oh my god. Oh my _god_," she said in a hushed and reverent tone.

"What? What is it?"

"It's an invite to the Christmas party." Instead of looking properly awestruck, Grief merely looked politely confused. "The Christmas party," she explained, "that the Penguin hosts. This is _huge_. He doesn't invite just anybody to these, you know!" She examined the card, grinning so widely that her cheeks ached. "Maybe it was because I killed Teng. Ooooh, do you know what this means?" She hugged herself, eyes sparkling. "I'm finally getting a reputation. Think of what we could do - we could pull some heists with the A-listers. Can you imagine what we could do if we were working with Eddie? Or Crane? Oh, we are going to make _so much money_!"

"I thought you were already in with them," Grief said, sitting down at the table. "I mean, they broke you out of Arkham. They let you stay at their lairs - "

"That doesn't mean they'd want to work with me," Sorrow said dismissively.

"So you want to go to this? You want to spend Christmas with...them?"

"Well, yeah," she said. "I mean, who else am I going to spend it with?"

His previous blush began to creep back, tinging his face with hot red embarrassment. "Me, maybe?" he suggested.

"You want us to just sit here by ourselves?"

"No! I mean, my parents...my family...we all usually get together at Christmas," he explained.

"So?"

"So I thought we could...you know. Go there."

Sorrow rubbed her forehead. It was far too late at night - well, at this point, it was far too early in the morning - to deal with this kind of nonsense. "Here's a little tip for the future. Villains don't have families. And people really don't bring villains home for Christmas dinner."

"The Cluemaster has a daughter," he pointed out, smug in his archivist's knowledge of the rogues' gallery.

"And how long do you think it'll be before some screwball with a vendetta tracks her down and kills her?" she snapped. "Families are a liability. You said it yourself - if someone wants me," she stuck a thumb into her chest, "they'll go after you. But if someone wants _you_, they'll go after _them_." A sudden certainty washed over her, leaving a cold, sick feeling behind. She knew him far better than he thought - after all, their 'therapy sessions' had mostly been him discussing his past - and there was no forgetting the subtle tone of love and pride that always came into his voice when he talked about his family. If he had them, why would he need her? She shoved herself up from the table and turned away, leaning on the dusty counter as she bit back tears. "You can't have both. You have to decide - them or me." She stayed there, gripping the countertop, as she waited to hear sneakered footsteps walking out of her door and out of her life.

And suddenly he was there, pulling her away from the counter, drawing her into a hug. Her arms hung loosely at her sides as he squeezed her tight. "You're not getting rid of me that easily," he said fiercely. "If I have to choose, then I have to choose you."

"You're an idiot," she said, muffled by the rough fabric of his jumpsuit-clad shoulder.

"But you love me anyway," he said happily.

Her arms came up around him in a tentative hug. They stood there for a moment, savoring the feeling of having someone who loved them. "Can I at least go and say goodbye?" he asked softly.

She pulled back, about to say no, ready to demand that he sever all ties as instantly as the rest of the gallery had when they'd put on their costumes...

And then that damn puppy-dog look of hope and pleading kicked the anger right out from under her. She let out a deep, tired sigh. "Okay. Go say goodbye."

"Great!" he chirped, seizing her in a quick hug that lifted her feet right off of the ground. He let her back down and grinned joyfully at her. "My parents normally do Christmas at lunchtime - everyone's always too tired to have fun if we wait until night," he explained, as if Sorrow would know how most people usually spent their Christmases. "We'll go see them, I'll say goodbye, and then I'm all yours!"

"Back up a minute," she said abruptly. "_We_?"

"We," he confirmed. "I want you to come with me. You'll have a good time," he enticed, excitement putting sparkles in his eyes. "There's turkey, and games, and presents...we can even leave early enough to make it to the Penguin's party, if you want to." His excitement wilted slightly under Sorrow's wearied glare. "Please?"

She closed her eyes, massaging the bridge of her nose. He had a loving family, a concept that the rogues' gallery as a whole was unfamiliar with, and he was willing to give it up to be with her.

Idiot.

She had to talk him out of it. Okay, everyone thought he was her sidekick now, but if she showed up to the Penguin's party alone and seemingly carefree, he'd be dismissed as yet another round of temporary help and no one would care enough to bother him. Well, okay, the bats might, but there wasn't much that she could do about that. Anyway, the bats wouldn't kill him. If she kept him around, he'd end up dead sooner or later.

So there it was - his way out. They'd go to his parents' house, he'd be convinced to stay, and she could come back here.

Alone.

Oh well. His safety outranked her happiness. And since when had she had the right to hope to be happy, anyway? Hadn't her life taught her the one shining lesson that everyone else tried to ignore? Everyone Leaves. Or, rather, everyone left _her,_ which she should have been used to by now.

She'd go to his parents and he'd say goodbye - to her.

That's just how it had to be.

She faked a smile and met his eyes. "All right. I'll go."

(_to be continued_)


	4. White Christmas

Christmas Day in Gotham City was truly a sight to behold. The streets were lined with decorations, from the highest apartment windows all the way down to the tinsel-bedecked storefronts, and every sad little sickly sidewalk-planted sapling had a string of Christmas lights pinned to its branches. People crowded the streets, visiting relatives and friends, juggling armloads of brightly wrapped gifts and swearing at each other just a little bit less than usual in the spirit of the season.

Sorrow stood in a parking garage, arms wrapped around herself, stamping her feet to keep warm as Grief fumbled in the rear wheel well of his car. "You're sure it's there?" she asked his backside.

"It's here. I feel it, it's just..._stuck_. Ouch!" He yanked his hand back out, examined it for injuries, sighed, and reached back in again.

Sorrow sighed and leaned up against the trunk of the car. Her new coat - short, puffy, and pale pink - wasn't exactly what she would have chosen to wear...then again, that was the whole point of it, wasn't it? Pink coat, red sweater, a pencil skirt, high heels - none of it said 'rogue'. The skirt in particular bothered her. It cut in at the knees, which she supposed was fashionable, but functionally it meant that she had a hobble wrapped around her legs. She couldn't _run_ in it. Come to think of it, she probably couldn't run in the spike heels, either, but at least she could kick those off without too much of a hassle.

Of course, her hands had been a little harder to hide, particularly in this inconveniently modern era where gloves were out of fashion, but Grief had done his best with some skintight latex gloves and several layers of bandages. She examined them again, double-checking the tape that would keep the bandages firmly fastened, and sighed. This was never going to work. No one in their right mind would believe it.

"Almost..._there_," Grief said triumphantly, withdrawing a small magnetized box. He popped it open, pulled out his spare car key, and tossed it happily in the air before unlocking the doors.

Sorrow gingerly eased into the passenger side, wincing at the touch of the cold vinyl seat freezing right through her skirt. "And you're sure no one knew you parked here?"

"Yep. Would you believe this place was the only one I could find to park in? It's about a thousand miles from my apartment," he groused, backing out of the spot.

Everyone has a nervous habit. Some people drum their fingers on the table. Some scratch their noses, or play with their hair, or distract themselves by having their henchmen play a rousing game of 'Bobbing for Hand Grenades'.

Sorrow stuck her fingertips in her mouth and promptly spat them back out, coughing as cotton fibers stuck to her tongue.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, making a face like a dog with a mouth full of peanut butter as she scraped cotton off her tongue with her teeth. "Let's run through this again. My name is..."

"Rebecca," he said firmly. "Rebecca...uh..."

"Wells," she reminded him, firmly clamping her hands together in her lap. "That's okay, right? That sounds normal? Rebecca Wells?"

"That's fine, it's a great name," he said, waiting patiently behind someone who had never heard of turning right during a red light. He spared a moment to grin at her reassuringly. "Don't worry. It'll be fine," he said, patting her leg. "What is there to worry about?"

"Well, let's see. The bandages could come off, or even if they don't your parents might recognize me out of costume, I could blow my cover and they could call the cops, or maybe they'll just shoot me there and then - "

"My parents are not going to shoot you," Grief said, exasperated. "They don't even have a gun!"

"Well, fine. But what if Batman shows up?"

"We'll deal with it." He smiled at her again. "Cheer up, sunshine. We'll be okay."

She pressed her forehead to the chilly passenger window, watching the Christmas crowds pulse by as they continued on their way. Abandoning him at his parents' house would be the best thing for him, particularly if he was really naive enough to still believe in things like happy endings.

* * *

In olden times, the poor and the underappreciated were forced to live on the outskirts of their towns, while the rich and fortunate claimed the best bits next to the prettiest and most useful buildings. But with the invention of the automobile, and the trendy addition of suburbs, the poor and underappreciated found themselves smack dab in the middle of the cities while the middle class built themselves new lives in brick houses with little square stripy lawns.

Grief eased the car into his parents' driveway, humming the Carol of the Bells under his breath as he parked behind his brother's ancient red minivan. "We're here!" he announced.

Sorrow peeled herself off of the window and nervously double-checked her bandages. "You're sure you want me to go in?"

He laid a hand on her knee and squeezed reassuringly. "I'm sure."

After a brief, icy scramble to the front steps, they found themselves at the Grey's front door. Troy swung it open without stopping.

"You don't knock?"

"No. I grew up here. You don't knock on your own door!" he said cheerfully. "C'mon, S- uh. Rebecca."

It's said that scent is the key that unlocks memories. As the scents of his parents' home filled the air around them - turkey, spices, pine and the sharp papery-ink of presents - memories swarmed up in Troy's brain like a herd of love-starved cats vying for their owner's attention. That Christmas when - and the time that he'd - and that day that -

'Rebecca' cleared her throat. "Can I get a little help, here?" She wiggled her bandage-mittened hands at the toggle closures on her coat.

"Oh! Oh, yes, sorry," he stammered, fumbling with the unfamiliar fasteners.

"Troy? Sweetie, is that you?" a woman's voice called from deeper in the house.

"Yep!" he bellowed back, slipping Sorrow's coat off of her shoulders.

"UNCATROY!" The sounds of small feet drumming on hardwood floors reverberated down the hall as a pack of children raced for the foyer. Troy turned and knelt to greet them, not noticing Sorrow's abrupt retreat back to the front door.

He disappeared under a flurry of kids, all trying to hug him and tell him stories at the top of their lungs. Laughing, he extracted himself, promising to listen to each of them once they could take turns talking. "Okay! Okay, guys, enough. I'm happy to see you too," he said, shaking off the last clinging leg-hug.

"Kids! Let Troy get his coat off!"

"Better listen to Grandpa," Troy said, shooing them off. "We'll be in in just a second." The thundering horde pelted back to the playroom, fighting to be the first back inside.

Troy slid out of his jacket and hung it on a peg on the wall, doing the same with Sorrow's pink fluffy marshmallow of a coat. "Ready?"

"You didn't say there'd be kids."

"What's wrong with kids?"

"I don't know how to...I mean...what do you do with them?" she hissed desperately.

Whatever advice Troy may have given was forever silenced when his mother stepped into the hallway, drying her hands on a red-and-green kitchen towel. "Troy!" she beamed, tossing the towel in a nearby chair and clutching him in a hug.

"Hi, Mom. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas - " she began. Then, with a look of surprise on her face, she noticed Sorrow lurking in the shadows near the door. "Oh! Who is this?"

"This is Rebecca. Wells," he added, hurriedly. "She's my...um..."

"I'm his girlfriend," Sorrow volunteered over the roaring silence of his blush.

"Oh, how _wonderful_ to meet you!" Troy's mother neatly sidestepped her son and caught Sorrow in a bruising hug that was the equal to the one she'd given her son. "I'm so glad you could be here. What a wonderful surprise!" She squeezed her once more, hard, then held her at arm's length to look her over. "And what a lovely sweater! It's so soft!"

Sorrow smiled uneasily. "Mom," Troy said, embarrassed.

Troy's mom backed away, holding up her hands in a playfully innocent fashion. "Sorry, sorry." A beeper shrilled through the air. "Oh, that's the turkey! Come on, you two, time for dinner. MARK!" she shouted, seizing Sorrow and Grief by the shoulders and propelling them deeper into the house. "Grab two more chairs! Troy brought a guest!" A small girl, clutching an intricate-looking robot that was nearly half her size, skidded down the hallway past them and veered right, aiming for the staircase. A bickering mob of squabbling, shrieking children followed in her wake, wailing and whining and shouting threats at the top of their lungs. Tiny feet thudded machine-gun fast on the stair treads and disappeared upstairs.

A younger man, presumably Troy's older brother Mark, appeared from the back hallway with a folding chair tucked under each arm. "Hey, kiddo," he said, shrugging a shoulder at Troy in a friendly sort of way. He turned a charming, happy smile on Sorrow, which she did her best to return. "Welcome to the madhouse," he said, rolling his eyes upward at the storm of childish fury erupting on the floor above them.

* * *

If there was one thing that the Grey family excelled at, it was cooking. Their love of food in all its incarnations peaked during the holidays, when so many traditional treats and festive goodies just begged to leap off the pages of the recipe book and into their mouths.

The dining room's every surface was covered with food. Potatoes served four different ways crowded into the center of the table, while vegetables with countless sauces and seasonings clustered around them in a perfectly spaced circular arrangement. Each table setting was stacked with two plates and a large bowl, presumably for filling with a bewildering array of salads and artistically carved fruit. Even the bread rolls were shaped in whimsical little blobs. The masterpiece, however, was the turkey - a bird almost too large for one man alone to lift, crisped brown and exuding an aroma that would have garnered a round of applause from any Michelin-starred chef.

Any table that could seat the entire Grey family had to be enormous. Not because of their weight - their love of hiking came second only to their love of food - but because of the sheer number of them. The fourteen Greys and Sorrow crammed themselves around the table, apologizing for bumped elbows and shifting to make more room on this side or that.

The little kids immediately dove for the bread. "Grace first," Troy's father reminded them. Guiltily, they dropped the rolls and wiped crumbs from their fingers.

Sorrow sat rigid and silent in her seat as they all prayed together. Even Troy joined in, muttering the prayer indistinctly as he tried to keep up with the pace set by the rest of the impatiently hungry diners. "...fromthybountythroughChristou rLordaMEN!" the group finished, immediately launching into a new refrain of "Pass this, hand me that, can you get me that other thing."

"Rebecca. Rebecca...Rebecca!" Troy's mom singsonged cheerfully, trying to get her attention.

"Hmm?" Sorrow asked, startled.

"Let me introduce you around," Troy's mom said, passing a gravy boat to her left. "I'm Troy's mom, Kathy, and this is my husband Jack."

"Pleased to meet you," rumbled Jack, focusing on carving the enormous turkey.

"This is Troy's sister, Karla, and her husband James. Between them are their children Julia and Alex." Karla looked up for a moment, smiled at Sorrow, and returned to dishing up food onto her small son's plate. "And on your right is Mark, and his wife Elaine, and those are their children. Oldest to youngest, that's Adam, Michael, Valerie, George and Christine - she's only a few months old," Kathy added proudly. "Everyone, this is Troy's girlfriend, Rebecca."

"Ah. Um, nice to meet you all," Sorrow said hesitantly.

"Here you go - do you like scalloped potatoes? Elaine made them with real cream and -" Mark broke off, startled, as Sorrow's bandaged hands appeared from their hiding spot under the table to take the food.

"Oh my goodness! Rebecca, honey, what happened to your hands?" Kathy blurted, staring wide-eyed at Sorrow.

"Oh. It's nothing, really," she said, cringing a little as she noticed everyone's attentive stare focused on her. "It was...my cat. I was cooking, boiling that is, potatoes, and he startled me and I dropped the pot and...burned myself," she finished lamely.

"That's awful!"

"I have a cat," announced little Valerie solemnly. "His name is Kevin. What's your cat's name?"

"Uh...Mr...Whiskers?" Sorrow suggested desperately. In all their planning about excuses they'd never thought to name the stupid imaginary cat!

"Kevin's got brown fur. He scratched me yesterday," she informed the table, displaying a tiny scratch on her right arm. "Kevin likes to climb up on the fridge and jump on us like Batman does."

The serving spoon clattered noisily in the pan of green bean casserole. "What do you mean, sweetie?" Grief said, frantically trying to cover up Sorrow's momentary spasm of terror.

"Like Batman jumps on the bad guys!" She mimed someone jumping off of something tall and landing with a _splat_ in her outstretched hand. "'Cept Kevin uses his claws. Does Batman have claws, Uncle Troy?"

"No, he doesn't," he said, trying to take the green bean casserole out of Sorrow's deathgrip. She unexpectedly let it go, and a wave of mushroom-soup-covered green beans splatted onto his plate.

"Speaking of Batman," Jack said, eyes still firmly on his work on the turkey, "I've been meaning to ask you how that job at Arkham's going, Troy. Seems like you've been so busy since you started there that we've barely heard from you."

"Oh. Uh," Troy said uncomfortably.

"And you know your mother worries about you."

"Oh, Jack," Kathy said. "I'm sure he's doing a wonderful job there." She turned to Troy, worry sparking in her eyes. "You are...safe there, aren't you?" she asked. "With all of..._them_?"

"Like anyone's safe around _them_," Mark snorted, forking a prime piece of turkey onto Sorrow's plate for her. "You can't trust them for a minute, you know. Do they at least let you have a gun?"

"Mark, I'm sure they have things under control enough so that he doesn't need a gun," Jack said patiently.

"Oh, come on. They break out of there just about every day! Look at two weeks ago - all of them gone in one night!"

"That hardly ever happens," Jack said, with a definite subtone of _don't upset your mother_. "So how _are_ things at the nuthatch?"

Troy sighed and picked up his napkin. "I quit," he said abruptly, picking at the neatly sewn hem of the little red square of cloth.

"You what?"

"I quit. The people there were..." _Indescribably hypocritical, self-centered monsters out to make a quick buck_. "Not very nice," he summarized.

"Well, of course they aren't very nice, dear, they're criminals," his mother pointed out gently.

"Not them! Well, I mean, yes, them...some of them," he added hurriedly, trying to balance his opinions between the two factions currently seated at the table. "But I meant the staff."

"So what? You weren't trying to be _nice_ to the inmates, were you?" Mark snapped.

"Mark," Elaine said, laying a hand on his arm.

He shook her off. "They're lunatics, Troy. You've got to beat the evil out of them. It's the only thing they understand."

"Mark!" Kathy said, shocked.

"I'm sorry," Elaine apologized. "It's just that the Scarecrow showed up in his building a few months ago - Mark's a chemist," she explained briefly to Sorrow, who was staring at her plate in an effort to ignore the conversation.

"And he stole half our stock of chemicals!" Mark snapped. "We're still trying to replace some of the stuff he stole that night. Not only that, but the leftover toxin from when he gassed the security staff took for_ever_ to scrub away. The whole place smelled like rotting meat for two full weeks."

Sorrow took a careful sip of her water. "What happened to the security staff?" she asked politely.

"Oh, they were fine," he dismissed. "It wore off in a few days. They all got double overtime, too."

"That's nice," Sorrow said, taking another careful sip of water. Troy eyed her nervously.

"But you agree with me, don't you?" Mark pressed. "They shouldn't be allowed to do that kind of stuff! The cops should lock them up and throw away the key."

Troy, trying to stifle his outraged screech, bit his lip and looked firmly down at the table. Instead of seeing calming food, though, he noticed nothing but Sorrow's bandaged hand trembling ever so slightly. Fury snapped his self-control. "They're people, too, Mark," Troy said defiantly.

"The Joker is not a _person_," sneered Mark. "The Joker's an animal. They all are. Selfish, violent, lunatic -"

"Mark," Jack thundered, cutting him off by the sheer volume of his voice. "Enough." Mark grumbled something under his breath and stuck a forkload of salad in his mouth. With a tense smile, Jack turned to Sorrow. "So what do you do for a living, Rebecca?"

Sorrow sat her fork down gently and smiled at Jack. Troy felt his stomach drop to the bottom of his shoes. She was going to tell them. She was going to tell them right now, damn the consequences, and okay so he was going to tell them but _later_, right before they left, in a letter - she knew he'd written a letter, she'd seen him writing it! - and they weren't anywhere close to leaving yet and -

"I'm in the mental health field," she said brightly.

"Oh, like Troy? Did you two meet at Arkham?" Kathy asked, buttering a roll.

"We certainly did," Sorrow said, keeping that quiet smile plastered onto her face. Troy managed a sickly smile of agreement to go with hers. "We both took an interest in trying to change some of Arkham's more brutal inmate care methods." Mark pointedly stayed silent and continued cutting his turkey.

"Have you had problems with the other staff?" his mother asked her. "If they're as bad as Troy says they are, maybe you should try to find another job."

"Oh, I have. In fact, Troy and I are going into business together," Sorrow said, smiling cheerfully at Troy.

"That'll be nice," Kathy beamed. "I bet the two of you will really be able to touch people's lives."

"Uh-huh," Troy said, carefully capturing stray kernels of corn with the edge of his fork. Desperately, he fought to come up with a change of topic. The weather? The latest sports win? It wasn't like Arkham supplied newspapers in their rec room, and the past few days had been too busy with getting ready for today to even think about what was happening in the rest of Gotham.

Ah! "How about you, Karla?" he asked his sister. "How's life among the ten-year-olds?"

"I promised them that I wouldn't give them homework over Christmas if they were good last week," she smiled. "You wouldn't believe the change in their behavior. Even Brian was good," she said, awed at the memory.

"Brian? Isn't that the kid who cut that one girl's pigtail off?"

"That's Brian," Karla sighed, rolling her eyes.

Troy forked some turkey into his mouth with a sigh of relief. If he could just keep Arkham and its denizens out of their thoughts for the rest of the afternoon, this Christmas might turn out to be salvageable after all.

* * *

"So what now?" Sorrow hissed quietly into Troy's ear as they followed the line of family members traipsing to the living room.

"Presents." Troy led her inside, seating her on a massively overstuffed red couch. She stared around the room, eyes wide.

Norman Rockwell had nothing on the Grey family. The tree, eight feet tall at the very least, stood imposingly in the corner, surrounded with stacks of presents that exploded out from beneath it like brightly-colored snowdrifts. The heavy, piney scent of the tree mixed with the delicious smells wafting from plates of cookies and treats that rested on end tables. The room was lit only by the lights on the tree and a soft, flickering glow from the gas fireplace.

The children dove onto the floor and squirmed close to their respective piles of presents, waiting anxiously for permission to begin opening them. A smile from their grandfather was all the signal that they needed. Wrapping paper, ribbons, and sticky-backed bows flew skyward in a joyous, messy riot of discovery.

The clock on the wall bonged out a slow, measured beat. Four o'clock.

Beside her on the couch, Troy stretched and pulled himself upward. "'Scuse me for a minute," he said affably, sauntering slowly out of the room. As he left, Sorrow saw him slipping a folded envelope out of his pocket.

She had to stop him. "Oh, is it four? I need my medication. For my hands." Sorrow squirmed off of the enormous couch and darted past the apocalypse of wrapping paper into the safety of the hallway. She peered in empty doorways until she found Troy standing in what had to be his old room.

It was clearly a room that had seen very few visitors. A desk in the corner held an ancient computer perched on top of it. Boxes labeled 'Psych Textbooks' were stacked haphazardly on top of boxes with no labels but dangerously bulging sides. A twin bed, neatly made, had a selection of childhood toys laid out on the blanket, half-sorted into bags labeled 'Keep' and 'Toss'.

Sorrow grabbed Troy's arm as he set the envelope down on a well-worn stuffed dog. "Don't! Don't do this," she pleaded.

"I made up my mind," he said, adjusting the angle of the envelope. "I'm saying goodbye."

Sorrow snatched the letter off of the bed and held it behind her back, clutched tightly in her bandage mittens. "They love you. And they're nice!...well, okay, your brother's kind of a jerk, but everyone else is nice. You can't just walk away from a family like this!"

"Why not? You walked away from yours!" He made a futile grab at the envelope.

"I didn't have a family!" She stopped, horrified, as the words left her mouth. Of all the things she wanted to discuss right now, or ever, her past was at the bottom of the list. "I mean...damn it. Look, I don't want to talk about it," she said, trying to ignore the spark of curiosity burning in Troy's eyes. "It's not important. _You_ have a family - a family that loves you! Do you have any idea how lucky you are? I am not going to be responsible for you throwing all of that away!"

Troy chuckled a short, harsh chuckle like a crow with asthma. "You're right. You're not going to be responsible." He twitched the envelope out of her hand, smoothing the wrinkles out of it absently as he met her eyes. "I am. You think all of this is your fault? I got _myself_ into this," he said firmly, continuing on over Sorrow's immediate protest. "You didn't get me kicked out of my job - I quit. Who showed up at the Iceberg in costume? Me. Who took you and Ivy to his apartment after helping steal a car? Me. I did this, I _chose_ this, and you're not leaving me behind!"

A burst of laughter echoed down the hall. They fell silent, listening to the merriment in the other room. Troy placed the envelope back on top of the stuffed dog and took one last, long look around his childhood room. "Let's go."

Sorrow nodded and gestured him out, taking a moment to make a furious screamy grimace at the back of his big stupid idiot head. If getting rid of a sidekick was this hard, no wonder the Joker chucked Harley out of windows all the time.

All right, so maybe talk wouldn't convince him. Maybe he'd be convinced when they pulled their first heist. Maybe he'd realize he'd made the wrong decision the next time she used her powers on someone in front of him.

Maybe he'd stay with her anyway.

A small, selfish part of her mind uncurled itself and hissed happy thoughts that he was going to stay. Someone who loved her was going to stay by her side, even if she said for him to go away! How long had it been since someone stood with her like that?

Sorrow blinked out of her thoughts as they came to a stop in the doorway to the living room. The tree glowed brightly with rainbow lights that sparkled and shimmered off of countless ornaments. Children were gathered beneath it, playing with new toys and devouring carefully iced cookies. The adults lounged on the soft, spotless furniture, curled up under afghans and laughing together over old well-loved family tales. Elaine, baby Christine in her arms, laid her head peacefully on her husband's shoulder as they watched the children having a perfect Christmas.

Troy cleared his throat. "We have to go," he said, bringing the celebration to an abrupt halt.

"Go?" Kathy asked, confused.

"We have...somewhere else we have to go tonight," he said uncomfortably.

"Oh, of course, you have to see Rebecca's family today too, don't you?" Kathy said, smiling as the realization hit her. She stood up, adjusting her snowflake-spangled sweater, and smiled at her son. "Is that right?"

"Yes," Sorrow said, fidgeting slightly. "My...family. Yes."

"Well, then, go. Have fun, be safe! And you're always welcome here, Rebecca. You and Troy be sure to come and visit again, all right?" Kathy caught them in another enthusiastic hug. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally let them go. Sorrow's feeling of relief was cut short when she saw Jack, Karla, Mark, and the rest of the crew lined up for their ceremonial good-bye hugs.

But the farewells weren't over that easily. The family followed them to the foyer, offering last-minute bits of advice and information, indulging in one more round of hugs and a last-second gifting of an enormous sack of leftovers. At long last, Sorrow was able to escape out the front door, followed closely by Troy.

"Goodbye!" the family waved, shivering as a blast of cold Gotham air whipped into their house.

"Goodbye, everyone," Troy called back, balancing the food in one arm so that he could wave with his free hand. "I love you all!"

"Love you too!" the chorus came from the front porch. Then, with playful yelps about the chilly weather, they disappeared back inside.

Troy loaded the food into the backseat and slid into the car. With one last look at the house, as if he was drawing every detail permanently into his memory, he started the car. "Next stop - the Iceberg Lounge," he said, doing his best to sound cheerful as he steered them into the gently drifting snow.

(_to be continued_)


	5. Do You Hear What I Hear?

The exterior of the Iceberg Lounge was normally not a feast for the senses. The fake glaciers leaning up against its facade were often filthy (but never spray-painted - if you were smart enough to hold a can of spraypaint, you were smart enough to realize that the Penguin's wrath was not a good thing to invoke upon yourself), the doors were chipped and dented, and the sidewalk was pocked and cracked with the evidence of a thousand exuberant criminals showing off or fighting one another over the years.

Tonight, it shone like the glittering palace of ice that the Penguin probably wished it was. The cold blue lights of the sign gleamed steadily into the street. The fake glaciers were polished and illuminated from the inside, glowing gently under softly building snowdrifts. An enormous man in a tuxedo was parked in front of the doors, clipboard in hand.

Sorrow strode up to the door, Grief following closely in her wake. Their blue coats twinkled as the falling snow polka-dotted them with white. Their matched gray faces were dim and indistinct in the evening streetlights.

Sorrow stopped in front of the man, who scrutinized her closely. "Sorrow, right?"

She nodded.

"We're glad you could attend. May I see your invitation?" he said, with the air of someone who'd had the phrases beaten into him at trick-umbrella-point.

She held out an imperious hand to Grief, who immediately passed her the small square of paper. She gave it to the bouncer, who looked it over briefly before handing it back. "Go right on in. Enjoy the party," he offered, holding the door wide for them. Sorrow sailed inside, Grief trotting obediently behind her.

Even the small hallway leading to the main bar had been spruced up. The coat-check room, manned by a petite girl in a tuxedo-styled leotard and top hat, had been framed with blocks of fiberglass ice that twinkled in the soft lights. Soft white rugs covered the blue tiled floor. The double doors leading to the main bar had been replaced with a set of heavy frosted plastic doors that looked amazingly similar to sheets of ice.

Sorrow glanced behind her. "Ready?"

"Ready," Grief confirmed. She swung the doors wide and they stepped inside.

The Penguin had specified that the party was to take place in the Iceberg's VIP lounge. But, over the years, as his list of invitees grew, the logistics of keeping several of the world's most unstable villains in elbow-to-elbow contact with one another grew too wearisome. And while there still was a selection of fancy treats in the lounge, most of the main bar area was given over to the real party.

The room was full of other rogues in their finest outfits, drinking, laughing, and carrying on furtive conversations in discreet corners. Catwoman, in a slinky purple gown and a necklace liberally coated with diamonds, bent her head in intense conversation with Bane, whose tuxedo had been specially tailored to allow for the Venom mechanism strapped to his back. Killer Croc, who in deference to the formality of the occasion had donned a pair of black dress pants, bounced his bare feet idly on the rungs of his barstool as he tossed peanuts into the air and caught them in his mouth. Mr. Freeze adjusted the bowtie clipped around the neck of his cold suit and leaned back in his chair, ignoring his chattering henchgirls. They gossiped together in excited murmurs, unaware that Scarface had his wooden eyes trained on them while Arnold Wesker politely admired the decor. Sorrow and Grief found their assigned table - towards the back, naturally - and slid into their seats. A waitress in a short black dress immediately brought them a selection of drinks and snacks.

"Some party," Grief murmured, looking around at the transformed interior of the room. The fake icebergs inside had been polished, too, and the decorative penguins had been given a touch-up coat of black paint that glimmered in the soft lighting. The floors had been scrubbed and polished until every last stubborn bloodstain had come up. A teenager in a tuxedo sat unobtrusively behind a small table in the corner, minding the sound system and cueing up tracks of soft, tinkly piano versions of holiday songs. The jukebox had been removed and the empty space had been filled with a monstrous buffet table, packed with chafing dishes containing the very best catering that the city offered. The battered metal tables had been covered with fine white linen tablecloths, topped with sparkling centerpieces and set with top-quality china and silver.

The main doors slammed open. A bewildering array of people costumed as animals, human royalty and bizarre combinations of inanimate objects swarmed inside, manhandling an enormous something covered with a sheet through the delicately placed tables. The Mad Hatter strode in behind them, a beaming grin on his ratty little face and a tall, sullen blonde on his arm. "_How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they'd give you milk in there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn't good to drink -_" he nattered, leading her proudly through the room.

The Hatter's henchmen unceremoniously kicked a table out of their way, shattering crystal glasses and smashing china, and settled their burden neatly in its spot. The sheet came off, revealing a garishly colored enormous fiberglass teacup. A henchman in a Dodo costume spun the cup so that the door faced his boss and held it steady while he and his Alice clambered inside. "No, no, _no,_" the Penguin squawked, waddling up to the table and flailing his hands wildly in the air. "You cannot bring this _thing_ in here! Look what you've done to my plates!"

"_It is easy to set such a dish on the table_," the Hatter said reflectively, jerking the teacup into a wild spin.

"Get this _cup_ out of my establishment!"

"_Ah, THAT is so hard that I fear I'm unable_!" The Hatter grinned as the Penguin's face turned an ugly purple. Before he could completely lose his temper, a tuxedo-leotarded girl hurried to his side and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, calming himself, and strode off in his henchgirl's company.

"_Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don't smile, my dear, I'm asking it seriously_."

'Alice', whose expression resembled not so much a smile as it did a pained grimace, sighed explosively and edged a little bit farther away from her date. "Let me out of this thing. I have to pee," she announced, shoving her fluffy skirt along the inside of the cup. A fat woman in a Duchess costume stepped toward her, baby pig clutched tightly in her arms, preparing to push her back into her seat.

The Hatter glared at his henchwoman. "_I should advise you to walk the other way_," he said, irritation creeping into his tone. The woman hastily backed off, letting Alice slide out of the cup. She flounced across the room and paused, looking around for a bathroom. None were visible. With an eyeroll of complete disdain for this insufferable world, she swept up to Sorrow's table and glared at her, folding her arms. "Where's the bathroom in this place?" she demanded haughtily.

Sorrow looked her up and down. "I'll tell you where it is if you tell me what you're doing here."

'Alice' rolled her eyes again. "That guy, the one in the turtle shell. He came up to me at the mall yesterday and asked me if I wanted to go to a really killer party. Instead, he brings me here, and that dweeb with the top hat won't stop touching me!"

"I see. How long have you been in Gotham?"

"About a week. We're visiting my grandma - it's so boring there," she added petulantly.

"And what's your name?"

"Alice," the girl said. "Alice Melling. Now can you tell me where the bathroom is? _Please_," she added, like a toddler being urged into good manners by a hovering parent.

"Before you came here, did your parents mention anything about Gotham being..._dangerous_?" Grief asked, playing with a loose thread on his glove.

She gave him an exasperated glare. "I know how to stay safe in the big city," she said mockingly. "I'm not a little kid. I mean, what could possibly happen at a stupid party like this, with everyone in these dumb cos...tumes..."

Sorrow and Grief could almost see the gears turning in her head. The girl stared at them for a minute, then fixed her gaze across the room, where Two-Face was gathered in a huddle with the Riddler and the Scarecrow. Harvey, ever a ladies' man, noticed her attention and winked at her with his good eye.

She turned back to Sorrow, eyes wide. "That's not makeup, is it," she said flatly, incipient terror sharpening her words.

"Nope. That's Harvey," Sorrow said cheerfully.

"And that means that..." Her shoulder twitched jerkily in the Hatter's direction. "He's..."

"The Mad Hatter," Sorrow confirmed.

Alice leaned on the table, bending over until she was nearly eye-to-eye with Sorrow. "You've got to help me. Get me out of here. Please. _Please_," she begged in a whisper.

Sorrow took a sip of her water. "Sorry. You're on your own." As the color drained from the girl's face, Sorrow added "You'll be fine. The Hatter plays nice with his Alices. Lay low, do what he says, and you'll be home and happy by sunrise." _Well, maybe sunrise is a bit optimistic_, she added in her head, _but at any rate, the Hatter wouldn't hurt her_. She took another sip of water. "Bathroom's that way," she added, pointing across the room to an unmarked door near the DJ's table. "Better hurry. Jervis will be wanting you back soon."

Alice skittered back from the table and hurried to the door, casting a quick apprehensive glance at the riotous celebration breaking out around the giant teacup before she disappeared into the relative safety of the bathroom.

"You're sure she'll be okay?" Grief asked, uneasily eyeing the Hatter's revelries.

"She'll be fine," Sorrow dismissed. "Jervis hasn't killed anyone in...oh, months, at least."

"Hey!" Eddie reeled up to their table, a lime-green margarita wrapped in his purple-gloved hand. "**My charmer stirs! Avoid omega night?**" he said happily.

"Having a good time, Eddie?" Sorrow asked.

Eddie frowned. "That's what I asked _you_," he said sternly.

"We're doing fine, Eddie. Where's that new girl of yours?" Sorrow asked, glancing behind him.

"Query? She's over there, with the other henches," he said, waving an arm vaguely backward. A brown-haired woman in a green question-marked ballgown was seated at a cleared table across from one of Two-Face's girls in black leather and sequins. A purple satin-gloved hand gripped a biker-gloved hand as a crowd of wildly dressed men and women chanted encouragement. After a quick count of three, the Riddler's girl found herself with her arm bent backward across the table as Demonica held up a clenched fist of triumph.

Eddie slid into an empty chair, ignoring the squawks of outrage as the Penguin broke up the arm-wrestling match.

"He's really gone all out with the decorations, hasn't he?" Sorrow asked, examining a spray of crystalline flowers.

"Oh, he always does this," Eddie said, flicking a flower with one gloved finger. "I don't know why he bothers. It all ends up destroyed by the end of the night."

"Really?"

"Yeah. A few years back, Croc got drunk and fell over on Crane. Now, Croc swears that Crane gassed him on purpose, and Crane claims that Croc broke his toxin sprayer open when he landed on it. Whatever happened, it meant that Croc thought the place was full of scorpions and ripped the whole place apart with his bare hands."

"Sounds like a good time to be somewhere else," Sorrow said.

"You're telling me. He threw a table at my head," Eddie remembered. He took another swig of his drink. "So what's your next target?"

"We should be okay for a while, but we'll probably be hitting a bank sooner or later. Why?"

Eddie leaned a little closer. "I was thinking - with my riddles, your hands, and his chemistry abilities, we could really put together something great."

"Go on," Sorrow said.

"I've got several ideas," he said enthusiastically, reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket. He frowned. "But I left them at home. Anyway, we could - "

A loud crashing noise caught their attention. They glanced over to see that the arm-wrestlers had moved on to an impromptu hors d'ouevre food fight.

"I'd better get over there," Eddie said, hurriedly getting to his feet. "Last time they did that, it got us all kicked out. Well, it was mostly Harley swinging on the chandelier that did it -" A sparkling, crystal-bedecked centerpiece shattered noisily on the ground. "We'll talk later?" Eddie said, not waiting for an answer as he hurried back to his henchgirl.

"Sure thing, Eddie," Sorrow smiled, watching him go. He arrived at the group just as the Penguin descended upon them, squawking indignantly about standards and proper behavior and exiling the more food-coated henches to the VIP room. Eddie's girl, who had remained on the outskirts of the battle, tugged her boss behind a convenient iceberg.

The front doors slammed open again, revealing a fast-moving flash of purple and a tumbling blur of black and red. "You let them in _where_?" the Joker bellowed, holding one hand on his lapel flower. He shot a stream of acid at Harley, who nimbly handsprung out of the way.

"It was just one night, Mistah J, honest, and-yipe!" she leaped into the air, kicking both legs out in a perfect split as the acid passed through the air below her.

"It was supposed to be a secret lair, Harley! Do you know what _secret_ means?" the Joker bellowed, sending another stream of acid hissing through the air. "It means you don't bring any riffraff home with you!"

Sorrow and Grief, realizing that they were the riffraff in question, carefully edged backward to hide behind their centerpiece.

Two overly-muscled bouncers caught the Joker's arms from behind. He snarled at them as the Penguin waddled up.

"How many times have I informed you that violence is not permitted at the party? Escort him outside, gentlemen." The Penguin edged carefully past the holes the acid had eaten into the floor. "I will send you the bill for the repairs," he called after the Joker.

"Bite me, you waddling birdbrain," muttered the Joker as he dug his heels into the floor. "Hey, boys, you look a little too serious. C'mon, it's Christmas! Let's see a little smile." He brought his heels up from the ground, dangling in the air between the two huge men, and stamped down with a delighted giggle. Two matching streams of laughing gas hissed out of each shoe. The men let him go to chuckle and guffaw at one another as they collapsed to the floor.

Oswald raced back up to the door, where the Joker was pointing and laughing at the men.

"Out!" he bellowed through the red silk handkerchief clutched over his face.

"Pengy, Pengy, can't we let bygones be bygones? I admit I got a little carried away with Harley-poo…" Harley-poo, seated at the Joker's table, ignored the goings-on and reapplied her smeared makeup over a purple bruise. "Can't you show a little Christmas cheer and let a humble clown into the feast?"

"You have destroyed my floors and executed my staff. Get out," snapped the Penguin, biting down hard on his cigarette holder.

"Aw, c'mon, it's just a joke," smiled the Joker affably. "Look, it's wearing off already." Indeed, the men were slowly getting up from the floor, coughing and out of breath.

"And my floor?" Oswald said, crossing his arms indignantly.

The Joker grinned even wider and reached in his pockets. "I believe that this should cover it nicely," he said as he pulled fistfuls of cash out and tossed them to the Penguin. "I made a little stop off at the bank on the way here."

Oswald glared at the Joker suspiciously, then bent to gather up the money. One bill, which had landed in an acid-eaten hole, sizzled slightly. Oswald let it lay there.

"One more bit of trouble, Joker, and you're out." The Penguin sniffed haughtily at the Joker and waddled back to his table, where his henchgirl poured him another stiff drink.

"Now, where was I…" The Joker muttered. "Oh, yes! Har-LEY!"

Harley dropped the makeup mirror and dashed to his side, eager for redemption. "Yeah, puddin'?"

He beamed down at her. "Let's mambo. MUSIC!" he shouted. "We can't dance without music! Kill the pianist."

The DJ gulped. "A-any requests?" he asked timidly.

"_The Lobster Quadrille_!" the Mad Hatter shouted, spinning his teacup wildly to the left. The Walrus and the Carpenter, who were sandwiched in on either side of the Hatter and a determinedly smiling Alice, shrieked with happiness as they spun.

"I...do have that," the DJ said, timidly, "if that's all right with you?" he asked the Joker as the clown regarded the Hatter's celebration thoughtfully. "Sir?" he added.

"Yes, yes," he snapped, "play the song."

The DJ hurriedly popped the piano CD out and slapped a new one in its place. As Lewis Carroll's lyrics swirled out of the speakers, the Hatter and his crew jostled their way onto the dance floor, where they bowed to one another and swung into the dance. The half-drunk crowd of henches joined them, bouncing to the beat as the Hatter spun Alice in an exuberant polka. The Joker and Harley were in the middle of the dance floor, where everyone gave them and their acid-spitting toys a wide berth.

"Wanna dance?" Grief asked Sorrow.

"I don't dance," she said, pretending to be interested in the napkins. "Besides, _he's_ out there, and I don't feel like playing Dodge-the-Acid tonight." They watched the Joker for a moment as he twirled Harley into his arms for a fraction of a second.

"_He thanked the whiting kindly but he would not join the daaaance_-" the music blared. Alice and the Hatter went into a wild, uncontrolled spin. He released her to fly through the air like a discus. She skidded uncontrollably into the Joker and Harley Quinn, bumping Harley right out of the Joker's grip.

"_CHANGE LOBSTERS_!" howled the Hatter, seizing the Queen of Hearts and spinning her about.

"Good idea," grinned the Joker, tucking Alice under his arm before she could escape. "What's a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?" he asked as he twirled away from his henchgirl. Harley scowled at the usurper and stomped off of the dance floor, examining the crowd for a dance partner that would make the Joker just as angry as she was.

Grief yelped as a red-gloved hand grabbed him by the back of his coat. "Hey!" Sorrow protested, trying to catch hold of his flailing hands as he was yanked backward.

"You heard the man, change lobsters!" Harley shot back as she dragged Grief across the floor.

Sorrow watched the Joker intently for his reaction as Harley pointedly hauled Grief into his line of sight. Fortunately for Grief, the Joker had eyes for no one but Alice, who was staring back at him with a look rather reminiscent of a kitten at the mercy of a grizzly bear.

After an eternity of quiet panic, the song was finally over. Harley dropped Grief as if he was suddenly radioactive and scurried back to the Joker. "Puddin'?"

"Hmm?" he said absently. "Oh. You. I'm not done dancing yet." He snapped his fingers imperiously at the DJ, who obediently slammed another CD into the sound system.

"I'll dance with ya, Puddin'-"

"Who'd want to dance with _you_?" he sneered. "Get lost." Harley's lip quivered slightly as she backed away. With head held high, ignoring the staring rogues, she paraded to the Joker's table and sat down, glaring at her Puddin' as he took his vengeance on her by snuggling even closer with the terrified blonde in the fluffy blue dress.

As the Lobster Quadrille was replaced with standard dance fare, the Mad Hatter lost interest in the dance floor. He approached his unwilling Alice, adjusting the set of his hat as he walked. "_I hope you're not much tired?_" he asked, holding out an arm to escort her back to the table. "_Till the feast's ready, we've time for a nap._"

"Alice still wants to dance for a while, don't you, Alice?" the Joker asked. Alice whimpered something unintelligible and froze in place, eyes darting back and forth between the two villains. "Don't worry," smiled the Joker, shifting her deftly away from the Hatter's reaching hand, "I'll give her back when I'm done with her."

The Hatter shook his head stubbornly and grabbed Alice by the wrist. "'_Four times round is enough for one dance_," he snapped irritably, yanking his date closer to him.

The Joker yanked her right back. "I _said_ that we're going to _dance_," he said grimly as he leaned down to stare the Hatter in the face. "Is that a problem, Jervis?"

The Hatter gulped. "_Let this be a lesson to you to never lose _your_ temper_," he advised Alice as he backed away. He went back to his teacup, muttering "_How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws…_"

The Joker swung Alice deeper into the mob of partying henchpeople. Jervis watched them sullenly over the rim of an enormous cup of tea. Harley, humiliated, began plucking the centerpiece apart and rearranging the bits moodily on the tablecloth in front of her.

With a drink in her hand, Ivy stalked over to Sorrow's table and seated herself regally in the empty seat. "Can you believe her?" she hissed with the instant camaraderie of people forsaking previous grievances to focus on a new one. "He tries to kill her, dances with another woman, and she's sitting there trying to figure out a way to win him back. It's pathetic."

"Yeah, well," Sorrow said uncomfortably.

The Joker swept Alice low in a gentle, swaying dip. A tear stained with white makeup trickled down Harley's black domino mask. "I'm going to kill him. Want to help?" Ivy asked Sorrow.

"I'm here to have fun, not to kill the Joker."

Ivy snorted. "Are you telling me that killing him _wouldn't_ be fun?"

"It'd be fun right up to the point that Harley slit my throat. No thanks."

"Fine." The intricately woven vines that made up Ivy's dress bristled like the fur of an angry cat. Ivy rose to her feet and headed over to console Harley, who was now openly sobbing into her crossed arms.

The Penguin and a tired-looking henchgirl nodded politely to her as she passed. Then, catching sight of Sorrow, the Penguin immediately began to waddle in her direction. "Sorrow!" he beamed, full to the brim of Christmas cheer (and at least a half-liter of top-quality scotch, judging from the bottle tucked in the crook of his girl's arm). "So glad you could come!"

"Thank you for inviting me," Sorrow said politely.

"Oh, I think you earned it. Eliminating that dreadful doctor, escaping from the high-security wing - a bit more to drink, dearest," he said to his henchgirl, who obediently filled his glass. He happily gulped it down. "Ah, yes. Incidentally, who planned that last escape from the asylum?" he asked, curiosity alive in his eyes.

Sorrow coughed uneasily. "Why do you ask?"

The Penguin seated himself at their table, looking solemnly into his scotch. "You may have noticed that the Clock King hasn't arrived?" Sorrow nodded. "He isn't coming. He's in traction at the asylum. From what I've heard from his henchmen, the Batman was extremely interested in finding out exactly who it was that let everyone out."

"Interested?" Sorrow repeated faintly.

"Oh, yes."

"Traction?" Grief said in a sort of high-pitched whimper.

"Quite. Chiropteran cruelty is, alas, a staple of our chosen lifestyle." He savored another sip of his scotch and leaned closer, lowering his voice. "Speaking of which, if you ever need someone to help you find a buyer for...certain items...you may feel free to avail yourself of my extensive knowledge and list of contacts. For a small fee, naturally."

"Oh. But I don't really steal things - I mean, not _things_," she clarified, most of her thoughts still with the Clock King in his hospital bed. "Mostly just money."

"Ah, but things change, my dear. Things change..." The thumping, cheerful beat of the music amplified suddenly. A chorus of female singers belted out 'Ceeeleeeebraaaaaatiooooon!"

The Penguin levered himself up from the table with a grunt. "I specifically told that teenaged twit _not_ to play this song!" He drained his glass. "Enjoy the party." He stormed off, henchgirl skittering behind him.

Sorrow raked a hand through her hair and drained her glass of champagne. Beside her, Grief stared at a small plate of sliced cheeses as if he was hypnotized. "We are in such deep shit," Sorrow moaned, downing Grief's glass of champagne as well.

"Traction?" Grief repeated in a terrified mumble.

Sorrow stood up. "We've got to get out of here. Wait -" she said, as her memory kicked her in the hindbrain. After all, they weren't the only ones masterminding that escape. "We've got to find Eddie first."

"Traction?"

Sorrow grabbed his arm. "Yes. Traction. Want to go home to your parents?"

He shook his head violently. "Let's just get out of here."

"As soon as we warn Eddie." Sorrow scanned the room, looking for anyone covered in question marks, and instead saw Harley gesturing wildly at Ivy. The jester stood up, hands planted on her hips, and stuck her tongue out at Ivy.

Sorrow tugged Grief back down into his seat. "We'll find Eddie after Harley does...whatever she's going to do," she said, peering at her from behind the sparkly centerpiece.

Harley turned on her heel and strode onto the dance floor, coming to a halt an arm's-length away from the Joker. From the look in her eye and Ivy's skeptical arms-crossed pose in her seat, Harley was clearly out to prove a point to her beloved Red. "Puddin'?" she asked.

"Not now, Harley," the Joker said, not even bothering to look at her.

"But Mistah J - "

"I said _not now_," he snarled, waving a dismissive backhand at her that nearly connected with her face.

Harley deflated like a week-old balloon. Ivy got up, put a loving arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the front door.

"Okay, they're gone. Now we can find Ed-" Sorrow broke off, startled, as Harley and Ivy skidded back inside and slammed the doors. Working together, they dragged the enormous buffet table in front of the doors, spilling food and sending dishes flying as they barricaded themselves inside.

"Ladies! What are you _doing_?" the Penguin snapped, abandoning his scotch glass and waddling forward.

"The whole street's fulla cops!" Harley said, wedging a serving spoon through the door handles.

"That's impossible. I distinctly told that moron..." The Penguin ripped a cell phone from his pocket and dialed, scowling as he put the phone to his ear. "Turn that music off," he snapped at the DJ, who promptly cut the power to the speakers. "Hello? It seems that your friends have chosen to crash my party. I distinctly told you - I am aware of that, but - he _what_? That is not my problem. It is about to become _your_ problem, unless you - well, that's a start. We'll discuss it further tomorrow." He clapped the phone shut and stuffed it back into his pocket, turning to glare at the Joker. "You didn't rob a bank on the way here, did you," he asked grimly.

"Come to think of it, that bank did look a little funny," the Joker mused. Behind him, forgotten, Alice darted back to the relative safety of the Mad Hatter's teacup and stuffed herself beneath the tiny table in the center.

"That's because it was not a bank. You robbed the Wayne Foundation's Christmas Orphan Charity ball."

"I knew those guys looked familiar. Must be because I robbed 'em last year, too," the Joker grinned.

"_This is the police. Put down your weapons and come out of the building with your hands up!_" The order reverberated around the inside of the suddenly silenced party.

The Penguin scowled at the unrepentant Joker and beckoned another henchgirl over. "I thought something like this might happen. If you'd be so good to make that phone call we discussed earlier, Starling?" he ordered.

Starling pulled a neon orange cell phone from the bodice of her tuxedo-styled leotard and obediently placed a phone call. Because the importance of politeness had never really been explained sufficiently to the rogues, they all leaned a little closer to listen in. "Hey, Mitch. Yeah, Merry Christmas. How's tricks? No, I can't come to your party, I'm at the Penguin's party...well, duh, I work for him now, remember?" She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, it was fun working for you, too, Mitch, but being Princess Pickle-Relish didn't really pay the bills, y'know? What? No, you can't come here. Are you kidding me? This party's for big names only, bud. I know, I know, you and Crazy Quilt and Coyne had that big heist last year, but even Batman didn't bother showing up, and you all ended up in Arkham without any money anyway, so - " A wild burst of incoherent cursing buzzed out of the phone. "Look, I've got to get back to the party. You - oh, yeah, like you're going to crash the party. Sure," she said scornfully. "You and what army? Oh yeah? You want to say that to my face? Bring your friends. I'll be waiting for you." She hung up the phone and, shedding her anger like an unwanted coat, she smiled at her boss. "Worked like a charm."

"Good." The Penguin smiled congenially at his guests. "Then until our distractions arrive, may I offer you all a round of drinks? And..." he glanced over his shoulder, "whatever might be salvaged from the buffet?"

* * *

Batman crouched on a handy rooftop, peering down through the flurrying snow at the bright blue lights of the Iceberg Lounge. The police below him barked orders at the building through their bullhorns, but no one so much as poked a fingertip out of the doors - not that he really expected them to.

Not that he really _wanted_ them to. It was so much more..._satisfying_ when they ran, particularly if it meant that he could work off a little bit of his frustration and anger with some good old-fashioned fistwork.

They were in there, he was certain. He'd heard their voices through one of the many surreptitious listening devices that were planted here and there inside the Iceberg without Cobblepot's knowledge. He'd heard the Riddler propositioning Sorrow and Grief to work together at some point in the future. The thought of it made his knuckles clench a little tighter. The thought of suicidally spilling all of his secrets into the Riddler's waiting ears was about as pleasant as the memory of Bane snapping him in two like a dry pretzel.

And yes, the Riddler knew full well who he _really_ was, and presumably he'd taken a few days to ferret out all sorts of Bruce Wayne tidbits from the newspapers - but he hadn't had the satisfaction of hearing it straight from the source. And, after all, the newspapers didn't know everything. They hadn't been there when Dick had thrown away the Robin suit. They hadn't been there when Jason died -

He shook his head, sharply, focusing on the moment. There were the columns of police gathered in the street, silent and wary in their thick bulletproof vests. There was Robin, on the rooftop across the street, and Batgirl was keeping an eye on the rear exit to the Iceberg from yet another convenient rooftop. And soon, the three ringleaders of the Arkham escape would walk out those doors, and then -

And then he wouldn't kill them. That, however, left a lot of very painful and extremely satisfactory options available to him. His gloves creaked slightly as his fists tightened.

He stiffened as the Penguin's voice crackled into his ear. It was faint, indistinct - he must have been standing too far away from the tables when he talked - but he was saying...drinks? and the buffet. So he thought the party would continue as usual. Well, unless he missed his guess, the police below him were gearing up to go knock on his door with a selection of battering rams and, if that didn't work, explosives.

His thoughts drifted back to his three targets. Normally, they wouldn't be nearly the priority that he was assigning them. He knew for a fact that the Joker was there - he and Quinn had bribed their way out of Arkham again this morning - as well as Poison Ivy, Bane, and a whole crowd of other people that usually topped his list of People I Need To Punch. But then, that was the point, wasn't it? If he followed procedure, he'd take down the deadliest of Gotham's villains while the Riddler and Sorrow escaped scot-free.

Again.

No, that wasn't going to be happening tonight. Sorrow, Nygma, and their equally annoying sidekicks would be on their way to Arkham the very instant that they stepped out that door. After that, he'd help the police corral the rest of the lunatic fringe.

And that remained the plan right up to the point where a horde of twenty of Gotham's lesser-known and pissed-off villains swarmed around the corner. The Condiment King led the charge, fully dressed with his double ketchup tanks and his best pair of bright white underpants. Behind him, the Penny Plunderer and Crazy Quilt stormed along, followed closely by half the recent breakouts from Arkham as well as a selection of bottom-dwellers that had been caught up in the heat of the moment.

The wave of semi-recognized villainy came to a screeching halt at the sight of a street full of cops. The cops, not expecting an attack from the rear, instantly dropped into firing positions and aimed their weapons directly at the brightly-colored armada. "_Stop or we will open fire_!" the cop with the bullhorn barked.

A slow, evil grin slid across Crazy Quilt's face. The night's darkness was suddenly alive with coruscating rays of light in every shade and color. The light seared into the police force's eyes. Guns fired randomly into the cloud of light as the second-string rogues swarmed forward to prove themselves to be just as good as any of the lowlifes in the Iceberg Lounge.

Batman snapped a pair of dark lenses down over his eyes and threw himself down to the street, taking out Crazy Quilt with one solid punch between his helmeted eyes. As the patchworked rogue hit the street, the light show went out.

Batman worked his way through the crowd, letting the villains know exactly what he thought of their interruption. A right hook to the jaw and the Ratcatcher fell to his knees, looking for his teeth in the gutter. A sweeping kick to the sternum and the Signalman flew backward into a crowd of criminals like an airborne bowling ball. Captain Stingaree and the Cavalier, fighting back-to-back, discovered that flash bombs really stung when they were detonated directly at their feet.

There! In that alley - two blue-coated figures trying to sneak to freedom! Batman leapt over a tussling pair of fighters and raced toward them. They caught sight of him and broke into a run, skidding around a corner and -

A thick red liquid splatted heavily over his face and blotted out his vision. He clawed it away just in time to see Troy Grey's little sedan speeding away into the blackness. If he'd known it was there, he could have put a tracking device on it, but it was too late - and what was this stuff, anyway?

Ketchup.

He turned on his heel and caught sight of the Condiment King aiming a sprayer at him. "Ah, Batman," the rogue cried, fumbling in a pocket with one hand, "I thought you'd never ketchup to me! Does my as-_salt _unnerve you? Cumin a little closer and I'll pepper you with -"

A fist to the nose broke off any further puns. When the Condiment King appeared to be ready with another food-related quip, Batman slammed his fist into his face again, and again, and once more for good measure. And when the man tried to run away, well, no one could effectively run off with a broken leg, now could they?

Batman dropped the mewling, whimpering madman to the street and dove back into the fray. Fists and feet flew in a ferocious storm of fury and frustration as he vented his feelings on any masked face incautious enough to step within his reach.

When the fight was over, Batman and his two associates stood panting in the snow, surrounded by piles of would-be supervillains. The police swarmed over them, latching cuffs in place and dragging unconscious criminals to the waiting backseats of their vehicles.

Batman swept past them and stalked into the Iceberg Lounge. As he'd expected, the doors were open and the main room was completely empty except for one man. The Penguin lounged at an abandoned table, smoking a cigarette and swirling a glass of cognac thoughtfully in one hand. He caught sight of Batman and chuckled softly. "Better luck next time," he snickered.

Batman considered for a moment his sudden, burning need to hoist the Penguin by his lapels and dangle him over the edge of his building. But what good would it do? Much as he hated to admit it, the little fat man was more useful to him keeping the Iceberg open than keeping a jail cell warm. Instead, he turned and left.

The Riddler had six lairs at last count, seven if you counted that hideous pink apartment that he'd let his new girl decorate. Sorrow had only one. If he was lucky, they would run straight home and trust that whatever defenses they'd rigged up would hold him off.

Then again, when was he ever lucky?

(_to be continued_)

_Author's Note: Everything Jervis says in italics is from 'Alice in Wonderland' or 'Through the Looking-Glass', Eddie's anagrams are in bold, and if you want to hear the Lobster Quadrille, it's linked in my profile as the Mad Hatter video. _


	6. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

A very wise man once said that it is not enough to hide things in the last place that someone will look. Rather, it is best to hide them where no one will look at all. And so, much like the final locations of a set of car keys, a left sock, or the crew of the Mary Celeste, Sorrow had led Grief to a hiding spot where they would never be discovered.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Grief asked, his flashlight illuminating a door hanging half off of its hinges. Just above the handle, the door bore a wide series of cracks that corresponded nicely with the sole of a long-ago firmly applied boot.

"I'm sure," Sorrow said curtly, swinging the remains of the door wide and stepping through. Her flashlight beam bobbed as she padded down the dusty wooden stairs.

"Couldn't we have left town or something?" he asked, wincing as the stairs creaked under his booted feet.

"At two in the morning with no car? On Christmas? Dressed like this?" she asked incredulously, tugging the skirt of her coat out and flashing the light on it for emphasis.

"We have a car!" he protested.

"Yeah, and if it has a tracking device hidden in it, all Batman has to do is wait until we park somewhere and _wham_!" She smacked the flashlight into her hand.

"Good point," he admitted as she opened the equally ruined door at the bottom of the steps and disappeared through it. "But coming here -"

"We're safe here," she said, flicking her flashlight beam around the deserted basement. "No one would ever think to look for me down here." A sickly grin twisted one corner of her mouth. "No one ever did, anyway." She shut the door and fumbled for the light switch.

The dark, windowless room flared with bright fluorescent lights that illuminated everything just as she'd remembered it. There was the television, with a beat-up folding chair thrown roughly on the floor in front of it. There was the sink, there was the garbage can -

There was the strap-laden gurney that had been her home for eight humiliating, horrible days last August. Had it really been four months since Teng had brought her down here? It felt like yesterday.

She crunched across the shattered glass that carpeted the floor and swung herself up onto the empty lab table, curling into a tiny ball on the smooth metal surface. Troy uneasily clambered up onto the gurney, doing his best to avoid the curled piles of restraints as he stretched out for the night. She closed her eyes, pillowed her head on her bent arm, and did her best to try and block out her surroundings until she could get to sleep.

She dozed fitfully, waking with a start, searching for trouble, and drifting back into something that wasn't quite sleep but wasn't quite wakefulness either. A voice wound its way into her ears. It sounded...familiar. "Oh, Simeon!" a female voice called joyfully.

Sorrow came awake in a fraction of a second and swung herself to the floor, ripping off her gloves as she frantically searched for Teng in the shadows. The room was empty except for Grief, who was crouching in front of the television. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up," he said. "I couldn't sleep, and there was still a movie in the player..."

Sorrow yanked her gloves back on. Then, with a stony look on her face, she stalked over to the television and ejected the DVD. The shining disc took very little effort to snap in half. She broke the halves into tiny bits and threw the pieces into the garbage can. The pieces of plastic clinked against the mound of broken glass piled inside it.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. Go to sleep," she snapped, stomping back to her cold table.

"Something's obviously wrong. You're upset," he added.

"I'm fine!" She curled back up on the table, eyes firmly shut.

"You're not. It's because of this room, isn't it?" he asked.

She slitted one eye open just enough to see him watching her. "Brilliant work, Dr. Freud. Will you just go to sleep already?"

"I can't." He flicked a strap with his gloved finger. "Being here, in this room...with all of this," he added, pulling the cabinet open. An array of dusty syringes lay neatly in small piles. "Did you know that I talked to Teng in Arkham once?"

Sorrow wearily sat up and folded her arms. Her booted feet dangled over a swathe of broken test tubes and dented lab equipment. "If I listen to you, will you go to sleep?"

"Yes," he sighed.

"So what did the lunatic have to say? Anything useful?"

"Sort of." He shut the cabinet and leaned against the sink below it. "He told me that I'd never know you as well as he did."

"Bullshit," Sorrow snorted.

"He had a point!" Grief kicked a piece of broken glass irritably, watching it pinwheel into the wall and shatter into pieces. "I don't know anything about you! What you've done, where you've been - I mean, you know everything about me. I've told you all sorts of stuff about school and growing up and my family. I even took you to their house for Christmas!" He hoisted himself onto the gurney, knocking a strap out of his way as he let his feet dangle over the side. "I know more about the _Joker_ than I do about you!"

Sorrow rubbed her forehead. If she told him about her past, maybe it would drive him off. And that would be a good thing. Not for her - for him. He could go back to his parents and live a normal life again. Okay, so it left her alone, but she'd survived being alone before.

Besides, if she kept her secrets, wouldn't that mean that she was keeping him with lies? If the truth was enough to drive him away, and she didn't tell him, did it really mean anything if he stayed with her?

And anyway, if she didn't tell him then Teng would be right, and that was a squirmy, uncomfortable notion that had to be squashed as soon as possible.

"All right," she said, tucking her legs into a crosslegged position and tugging her coat down over them against the cold of the basement. "You really want to know about me?"

"Yes!"

"Fine."

So she told him. She told him about Teng, and his experiments, and her days locked in this room and others like it waiting for rescue and praying for death. She told him about trying to kill herself by biting Ivy, and how Harley had force-fed her a sandwich, and how Eddie had let her crash on his couch for a few days. She told him about Diego's betrayal and the long, terrible hours in Arkham's basement.

She paused, eyes locked on her twisting hands. Should she tell him about her parents? Even Teng didn't know about them. No one knew. And suddenly, the urge to tell someone - anyone - surged forward and took control of her mouth.

"You wanted to know about my family?"

"Please," he murmured softly.

"I was born south of Gotham. We had a little house there, not much, but it was home. Dad had a job in construction, driving the big machines, and Mom stayed home with me." She smiled, remembering scraps of a pleasant childhood. "And for nine years, we were happy."

The smile disappeared. "And then my hands started itching. It wasn't long before they started turning black. We went to doctors. They sent us to specialists - we didn't have the money for it, but they took me anyway - and no one had a clue. But my mom still tried to take care of me - washing my hands, rubbing lotion on them, hoping something might help. She touched my hands every day. _Every day_. It didn't hurt her right away...maybe it wasn't as strong back then. But over time, it built up in her system. She was sad, we could see that, but everyone thought it was something temporary. She did her best to hide it. No one knew how serious it was until we came home one day and found her...dead. And in the autopsy, they found..._this_...in her brain." She held out her hand, glaring at the glove covering her skin, trying not to think about what they'd found beyond her mother's bedroom door. "They didn't know what it was. They never knew it was my fault."

She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. "My dad was beyond angry. The man he had been died with my mom. The man that was left was a robot - moving through his day, ignoring me, ignoring everything but going to work and watching television. And one day, he saw me in the kitchen eating cereal - it must have occurred to him that the food wasn't safe around me. He came home the next day with gloves that he could ziptie around my wrists. But what if something happened? Better to keep me in the basement while he was gone. And when he came home, it was better that he didn't have to look at his wife's murderer. So I stayed down there for years."

"Finally someone realized that I hadn't been in school, hadn't even been seen for, oh, three years? and the police came to find out what happened to me. They found me in the basement, filthy, starving, with about six pairs of gloves ziptied to my hands. They brought me upstairs while they were handcuffing my father. He saw the cops cutting the gloves off of me and...snapped. He started choking me, and I tried to push him away...the cops dragged him off of me and he grabbed one of their guns and...he looked at me, and he put the gun under his chin and...and then of course the cop who grabbed me had gotten it on him as well, and he..." She shook herself, trying to forget that moment when that friendly man had stuck his gun barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

"After that, they sent me to juvenile hall. I killed a cop - clearly I was dangerous. They let me out when I was eighteen...not that it helped me much. I didn't have anywhere to go. No one would hire me. If it wasn't because of growing up in juvie it was because I couldn't take off my gloves. It wasn't long before I ended up on the street. It was getting cold, and I was trying to get some sleep, and then this enormous car roared by. It was the Atomic Skull, in Gotham to steal some big science thing. I only saw him for a second, but it was enough. He wasn't normal, like me, but _he_ wasn't starving. He was well-fed, well-dressed, he had a flock of men obeying him and okay, so he was being chased by the cops and the capes, but nothing's perfect. So I thought - why not me? I got some henchmen, put on a costume, and ended up in Arkham."

Silent eons ticked by. She risked a glance across the room. He sat, slightly open-mouthed, on the gurney, looking at her with...no, it wasn't disgust. It wasn't hate. It was...pity?

"And you've been carrying all of that around for all those years," he said softly.

"Well, who was I going to tell?" she said uncomfortably. "The only one who would have given a damn was Teng, and I certainly wasn't going to give him any more ammunition."

"I care," Grief said fiercely. "It's not fair, what happened to you."

Hot tears threatened to force themselves into her eyes. "It's not fair what happened to _me_? What about my mom?"

"That wasn't your fault!" He slid off the gurney and crunched through the broken glass to her side. "You didn't know what would happen. No one did."

"That doesn't change the fact that I k-killed her!" She bit her lip, breathing hard, trying to hold her emotions back. The tears escaped her self-control and dripped down her face, streaking her coat with gray makeup. Sobs bubbled up in her throat, choking her as she tried desperately to stop crying.

Grief hugged her tight. "Oh, sunshine, sunshine," he said, holding her close, pulling her in until her face rested on his shoulder.

"I'll get your coat dirty," she mumbled through her gasping tears.

"I don't care."

They held each other, clinging close as she cried. The poison leached off of years of memories as Sorrow sobbed on the shoulder of the only person who'd ever felt sorry for her. He stayed by her side, rubbing her back and murmuring soothing nonsense until Sorrow shakily pulled herself away. "We'd better get some sleep," she said, looking at the broken clock on the wall. "We've got to find a new hideout tomorrow."

"All right." He hugged her again, hard, and slid off of the table. "Thank you for telling me everything. Good night, sunshine."

"Night," she replied, curling back into a ball.

The lights clicked off.

* * *

The Grey house, which had been so festive just a few days ago, was rapidly falling into disrepair. Dishes, showing the beginning signs of mold, were stacked high in the sink, and empty takeout containers spilled out of the overflowing trash can. The air in the house stank of sweat and coffee.

Jack and Kathy Grey sat at their kitchen table, a half-finished pizza laid carelessly between them in its greasy box. They sat in silence, sipping coffee, staring at the walls.

A shadow detached itself from the window and paced toward the table, accompanied by a gust of bitterly cold wind. "Where are they?" Batman growled.

"You think _we_ know?" Kathy yelped, lip quivering as she stared at the vigilante.

"We've been searching for him for days," Jack explained. He gestured at the stack of photocopied flyers laid haphazardly on the countertop. They were fairly typical - Have You Seen This Man - accompanied by a picture of Troy in happier times, posing with a dog. "No one's seen him."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Christmas," Kathy choked, scrubbing a tear off of her cheek with the back of her sleeve. "He was here for Christmas. Him and that...that _criminal_," she spat. "She was calling herself Rebecca...how could we have been so stupid?" She buried her face in her hands, shoulders heaving with hysterical sobs.

"We looked her up in the library," Jack said. "What she did to that doctor..." He shook his head, refocusing on Batman. "Is my son safe with her?" he demanded.

Batman stared levelly back at him. If Dick had been here, he'd probably have made some quip about how completely ridiculous that question was. Then again, Dick wasn't here, because he was making his own life in Bludhaven, and that meant that any attempt at comic banter was out of the question. "Your son has convinced himself that he's in love with a convicted criminal," he said coldly. "People in that situation are rarely _safe_."

"You've got to find him. Please._ Please_," Kathy insisted, grabbing his hand. "You've got to get him away from her!"

He gently tugged his hand back and slipped a small black device out of his belt. "Here." He passed it to Jack, who gave it a suspicious once-over. "It's a tracking device. You activate it by pressing that button. If you find him, turn it on and I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you. Thank you, Batman," Kathy said, gripping his hand once more, hopeful tears bright in her eyes. "Thank you."

* * *

Villainy in Gotham was not restricted to members of the local rogues' gallery. Because Gotham was one of the leading centers of science and industry, it was frequently home to inventions that villains in other cities desperately, desperately craved.

Wax Street in downtown Gotham was the latest casualty from visiting villainy. Heat Wave had arrived in Gotham to get his asbestos-covered mitts on the very latest in firethrowing technology. The Flash had been fast enough to stop him before he got away with it, though he hadn't been fast enough to keep him from torching everything around him with his new toy. The street itself had been largely deserted by its inhabitants, since it was easier just to move than to wait around for their apartments to be rebuilt.

Sorrow and Grief had found themselves a new home in a building that had only been half-destroyed. Yes, the top rows of apartments had been burned away, but the firefighters had managed to put the blaze out before it touched the lower two stories. A sign on the glass window read, in fancy script, "Niobe Jewelers". The window itself bore a large, spiderwebbed crack in the middle.

It had taken three days to find the place, but it had taken a further ten to make it livable. The swarms of street people that called Gotham City home had left the bottom level full of newspapers and garbage. They'd broken the countertops, built fires in the remains of the metal jewelry cases, and used the small vault as a convenient dumping ground for any unwanted trash they might find in their possession. They hadn't found the door leading to the upstairs apartment, though, since it had been buried under a stack of unwanted office equipment in the store's tiny office.

The upstairs apartment was tiny - one room, with a miniscule bathroom - but it was large enough to safely hide in for a while. They'd brought home furniture and groceries, a hot plate and a small refrigerator, and everything else that they'd need to be comfortable.

Tonight, they'd had a lovely dinner - how Grief had managed to cook that wonderful meal on that lousy hot plate, she'd never understand - and now it was time to kick back and relax. Sorrow lay on the couch, flicking through a book, while Grief browsed that day's newspaper. He hissed, wincing.

"What?" Sorrow demanded.

He mutely held up the paper. The headline, in bold black ink, read 'SCARECROW CAPTURED'. There was a large color picture of Jonathan Crane, mask in shreds around his neck, being led into a large police van. Both eyes were starting to bruise, and his swollen lip gaped open to reveal at least one missing tooth.

Sorrow shuddered. "Guess Batman's still mad," she said, turning away from the paper and burying herself in her book. She tucked a fold of her coat, which was serving double duty as a makeshift bathrobe, firmly around her feet.

"Guess so," Grief said. "Good thing we moved."

Something thudded repeatedly against the outside door. Sorrow rolled off of the couch, creeping across the floor silently on her bare feet, and peeked out of the window. "You have got to be kidding me," she muttered as she recognized the two people standing on the street below them.

"What? Who is it?" Grief whispered.

"Come see."

He scrambled to his feet and peered out the window. "Oh my god, it's my parents."

"How'd they find us?" she demanded, trying to look up and down the street for waiting police cars.

"I don't know!" He threw himself away from the window as his parents looked upward. "I think they saw me," he hissed, back flat against the wall.

"TROY?" his father bellowed.

"What are they doing here?!"

"I don't _know_!" He hurried toward the small staircase that led down to the main entrance.

"What are you _doing_?"

"Letting them in. It's freezing out!" he said defensively. "And besides, if they keep yelling, the cops will show up."

Sorrow hesitated.

"TROY! WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!" Jack's stentorian voice echoed through the quiet night.

"All right, fine, let them in," she said. He thundered down the stairs. She heard the door unlock. "What are you guys doing here?" he asked urgently.

"We need to talk, son," Jack said.

"Okay. Let's talk upstairs. It's warmer up there." Grief bounded back up the stairs, followed closely by his parents.

Sorrow coughed uncertainly as they appeared in the doorway of the little room, uncomfortably aware of her bare feet and gray pajamas showing through the gap in her unfastened coat. "Um. Hi," she said tentatively. "What brings you here?"

"We got your note," Jack said, ignoring Sorrow and focusing on Grief.

"Okay," Grief said hesitantly.

"And we think that...oh, hell." The stack of photocopied flyers in Jack's arms fluttered to the ground. Jack fumbled in the pocket of his fluffy parka and pulled out a heavy-looking handgun, aiming it roughly at Sorrow's forehead. "Son, get your things. We're going home."

"What are you doing?" Grief gasped, horrified, as Sorrow slowly raised her gloved hands. "Put that gun down!"

"Do as your father says," Kathy pleaded.

Grief shook his head. "I told you. I'm staying here."

Tears rolled down Kathy's face. "Troy, honey, you're not well. I don't know what _she's_ done to you, but we're going to fix it. Come on, sweetie. Come with us." She held out her hand and stepped toward him, careful not to get in the way of her husband's weaponry.

He ignored her. "How'd you find us?"

"We've been out looking for you for days. Mark, Karla, and James too - Elaine stayed with all the kids - but we've searched and searched this city looking for you." Kathy twisted the hem of her thick wool coat as she looked plaintively at her son. "A man down the street said he saw you carrying a couch in here a few days ago."

"And now we've found you. Go get in the car with your mother, Troy." Jack raised the gun, letting Sorrow stare right down the barrel. She swallowed convulsively. "I'll stay here with _her_ until Batman gets here."

"You called the _bats_?" Sorrow gasped.

Jack snorted disdainfully. "Like we were going to leave _you_ running around loose. Let's _go_, Troy."

"I'm not going anywhere." He stepped between his parents and Sorrow, glaring at his father over the raised gun. Jack immediately pulled it to the side, ready to re-aim it once his son was out of the line of fire.

"Troy, don't do this," his mother begged.

Rubble shifted above their heads. "Batman!" Sorrow choked.

Jack and Kathy raised their eyes to the ceiling as if they'd be able to see the caped crimefighter scowling down at them. In that brief moment of distraction, Sorrow bolted around Grief and flew down the stairs, ducking as gunshots rang out behind her. She tumbled out the front door as glass shattered upstairs - presumably that was Batman making his grand entrance into their hideout through the side window - and raced down the sidewalk, bare feet going numb as they slapped down on the icy concrete.

The sound of thudding feet echoed behind her. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder. It wasn't Batman - it was Grief, doing his best to catch up with her. "You left?" she panted as they took the next right.

"Damn straight. They tried to _shoot_ you," he panted. "I don't know what's gotten into them."

"Must be my charming personality." They leapt over a fallen garbage can, fighting to keep their balance as her bare feet and his slick dress shoes hit the pavement.

"Where are we going?"

Sorrow grabbed his arm and yanked him into a nearby alleyway as she heard the distinctive _hiss-thunk_ of a Bat-grapnel latching onto one of the many gargoyles lining the rooftops above their heads. "The Iceberg," she wheezed, dragging him through the maze of dumpsters and discarded refuse lining the alley. "It's not far!"

Hand-in-hand, gasping for breath, they ran onward through the city. Sorrow couldn't help but smile. Yes, Batman was on their tail, and yes, Grief's parents had just tried to kill her, but he'd chosen her over them - all of them - and having someone to run with made all the difference in the world.

_Author's Note: This storyline continues in 'Beach House'. And now that all of my loose ends are tied up - tune in next week for 'Housebreaking', the next installment of Eddie's adventures with Jackie. I hope you enjoyed my story. Thanks for reading!_


End file.
